Contact: Kenneth Billings
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A Mississippi State history major from Collierville, Tenn., is among semi-finalists in an international essay competition.
Junior Ashley A. Shaunak, a President's Scholar at the university, and 10 others are in the final judging round of "Access: Voice of the Next Generation." The student challenge is presented by Net Impact and sponsored by FedEx, the international logistics services company headquartered in Memphis.
Entrants were asked to define their vision for the future of global connections. Specifically, each had to "examine the ability for people, organizations and nations to connect and interact rapidly and widely around the globe, accessing the goods, information and ideas they want, when they want them."
San Francisco-based Net Impact is a non-profit organization of more than 10,000 business administration and other graduate students and young professionals working together to promote socially responsible business issues.
The submitted essays are being judged on four criteria: originality of ideas, engagement with the theme, voice, and creativity.
The three top submissions will be announced in April and published in Access Review, FedEx's annual business magazine. In addition, each winner is receiving:
--Cash prizes of $2,000, $1,000, and $500, respectively, for the first-, second-, and third-place awards, and
--Full registration to the 2009 Net Impact Conference, to be held in November at Cornell University.
For more information on the competition, visit www.netimpact.org/access.
COLLIERVILLE/MEMPHIS EDITORS: Shaunak is the daughter of Anil and Faith Shaunak.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.