A University of Texas at Dallas doctoral student is one of five students in the nation to receive a 2021 Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Entrepreneurship Policy Fellowship.
Kate Maduforo is also a teaching assistant in public policy and political economy in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences. She will be honored at APPAM’s fall conference in March 2022 alongside four PhD students and four faculty recipients from around the U.S.
The awardees are the inaugural recipients of the fellowship, and all have research interests in entrepreneurship and policy.
Using data provided by the World Bank on the Youth Enterprise With Innovation in Nigeria program, Maduforo is examining business survival, relocation and growth of entrepreneurs who receive federal government funds in Nigeria.
APPAM, with support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, will offer classes for the students to explore the relationship between public policy and the entrepreneurial environment. The faculty will create and teach curriculum across three classes and discuss topics such as how public policies affect the business environment and economics, and how program structures and frameworks can and should take the entrepreneurial perspective into account.
“Being an APPAM Entrepreneurship Policy Fellow will enable me to learn from experienced scholars in entrepreneurship policy and network with students who share similar research interests as mine,” Maduforo said. “This opportunity would not have been possible without the support of UT Dallas faculty and staff, who are always willing to go above and beyond in making sure students succeed in whatever academic interest they choose.”
WEHack Founder Named Top 50 Hacker
University of Texas at Dallas student Medha Aiyah, who is in the computer science fast-track program, has been named a Top 50 Hacker by Major League Hacking for helping to create UT Dallas’ first hackathon dedicated for female and nonbinary participants.
“I was so honored to be part of that list. I feel as though it is a collective effort, and UT Dallas has helped me grow so much,” she said.
Hackathons are competitive events where computer programmers and others get together for a short period of time to collaborate and create a solution to a problem using technology.
Aiyah co-founded WEHack 2020 after serving as an event organizer for HackUTD, a 24-hour annual hackathon organized by the UT Dallas student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery. Even with women on the HackUTD planning committee, she realized the need for another venue to support first-time female and nonbinary hackers.
“I attended HackCon in Pennsylvania, and I met with other organizers,” Aiyah said. “I learned about hackathons for women and nonbinary students. I shared the idea with the Society of Women Engineers president at UT Dallas, and we decided to go for it.”
Aiyah worked on the logistics of hosting the event and with development leaders in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science to secure first-time sponsors. Just weeks before the event was scheduled to take place in April 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced organizers to re-evaluate their plans. The team ultimately decided to turn the event into a virtual hackathon in October 2020.
“We had more than 230 hackers from several countries,” Aiyah said. “We made it fun and interactive with a Discord server.”
Major League Hacking (MLH) powers nearly 2,000 invention competitions that inspire innovation, cultivate communities and teach computer science skills to more than 100,000 students around the world. The MLH Top 50 hackers were nominated by community members and selected by the MLH team.
Accolades is an occasional News Center feature that highlights recent accomplishments of The University of Texas at Dallas faculty and students. To submit items for consideration, contact your school’s communications manager.