Don Singer, director of telecommunications at Northeast Utilities, was the first president of the Southern New England Chapter of INNUA and a strong proponent of continuing education before he passed away in 1989. To honor his memory and keep his dream of educating his peers alive, the Don Singer Memorial Scholarship Fund, Inc. (DSMSFI) was established that same year as an INNUA benefit. The purpose of the awards program is to provide scholarships to telecommunication professionals wishing to participate in programs that will further their professional education.
The award amount is $2,000. The use of the award is determined by the recipients, as approved by the DSMSFI Board of Trustees, and is dispersed directly to the educational institutions/organizations. In past years, funds have been used towards seminars, conference attendance, and college and university classes.
The awards program is open to those individuals who are end-user members of INNUA, are at least 21 years of age and have a minimum of three (3) years experience in telecommunications.
Eligibility Criteria
Impartial consideration of each nominee will be based on a self-written article. This article must be written by the nominee exclusively for the DSMSFI scholarship program and cannot be used for any other purpose. Nominees are encouraged to write about their personal experiences and/or background in telecommunications and may choose from, but are not limited to, the suggested list of topics. All articles will be reviewed and certified by an administrator of the DSMSFI before submission to the panel of judges. Entries will be judged on timeliness of topic, depth of knowledge, logical presentation and originality/creativity. The members of the DSMSFI Board of Trustees will make final selection of the scholarship recipients. The winner(s) will be announced at the INNUA Global Connect Annual Conference and will receive written conformation. To ensure objectivity and confidentiality during the selection process, the identities of the nominees will not be revealed to the judges.
NOTE: Author agrees to relinquish rights to article, which becomes property of INNUA for publication and distribution with no compensation above scholarship amount awarded.
Nominating Process
For a nominee to qualify for consideration, the procedures below must be followed:
1. Fill out the attached Scholarship Application form, supplying all requested information. (The author's identity and information on this application will not be revealed to the judges until after their decisions have been made.)
Scholarship Application Form
2. Prepare an article of 3 to 5 double-spaced pages (approximately 1000 words). The nominee's name, employer or nature of business MUST NOT BE MENTIONED in this article.
Deadline for Nominations
The deadline for 2009 scholarships has passed. Entries for the 2010 scholarship must be postmarked on or before May 10, 2010 and five (5) copies of the article mailed to:
Don Singer Memorial Scholarship Fund, Inc.
c/o INNUA Headquarters
401 N. Michigan Avenue
Suite 2200
Chicago, IL 60611
Suggested Topics for Articles
- CTI implementation
- Data convergence
- Virtual call centers
- Predictive dialing
- Unified messaging
- Successful IVR scripting
- Web enabled applications
- Budget concerns, how to reduce costs
- Speech recognition
- Voice over IP (VoIP)
- Multimedia messaging
- Multilingual call routing
- Traffic analysis and load balancing
- Video conferencing
- Disaster avoidance and recovery
- Customer service and feedback
- Any original topic that deals with the current concerns of today's telecommunications management
The submitted articles become an excellent resource for telecommunications knowledge, as they are written "from the field" by the actual managers living the telecom experience. The following INNUA members have gotten a closer look at the Don Singer Memorial Scholarship Fund.
2007 Don Singer award recipient
The Difference One Workshop Made - by Maria McCallion
Previous Don Singer recipients
My Introduction to Videoconferencing - by Colette Belfor
The Telecommunications Manager - by Barbara Johnson
My Telephony Theory - by Jerry Darcy
Voice and Data Operations Assistant - by Darlene Young
A Journey Into Telecommunications - by Janet Collier
Making Cents Out Of ATM - by Dan Wilson
Don Singer dollars in action
Read how one member used scholarship dollars to further her education
For more information, contact INNUA Headquarters at 877-446-6684 or email info@innua.org.