To identify a young woman of exceptional ability, ambition, brilliance, courage, dedication, and vision who has the promise to be able to discover a cure for cancer, become the first female president, bring peace to the Middle East, or leave a permanent mark on the world by solving any one of the many intractable problems faced by our society.
The Prize for Promise was founded on the belief that our world is changed and improved by a few individuals of amazing ability. We seek to identify young women, aged 21 to 35, of great promise and vision who could, given the proper support, become world leaders in their respective fields.
"Great minds shape the thinking of successive historical periods. Luther and Calvin inspired the Reformation; Locke, Leibniz, Voltaire and Rousseau, the Enlightenment. Modern thought is most dependent on the influence of Charles Darwin. Almost every component in modern man's belief system is somehow affected by Darwinian principles."1 The Prize for Promise seeks to identify and support those women who could become the Luthers, Lockes, or Darwins of our current age. Tomorrow's great thinkers could be the young women we recognize today.
Our objective is to nurture and recognize excellence and the promise of greatness in young women. This will be accomplished by an advisory board of world-class experts on achievement, creativity, and genius. The panel has crafted guidelines that will be shared with decision makers around the world, who will be invited to nominate the young women worthy of this honor.
The first $100,000 was awarded in 2003 to Dr. Natalia Komarova, currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, a leader in the field of mathematical biology studying the modeling of cancer and virus dynamics, and Dr. Agata Smogorzewska, a graduate of the Tri-Institutional MD/Ph.D. program of the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Sloan-Kettering Institute, and the Rockefeller University, currently a resident in clinical pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
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1 Ernst Mayr, towering figure in the history of evolutionary biology and recipient of the National Medal of Science.
The Prize for Promise is a program of the Student Achievement & Advocacy Services Corporation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
