News Release

UC San Diego Giving Day

San Diego, Calif., May 14, 2019 -- The challenge is on! UC San Diego is hosting its inaugural Giving Day for 1,960 minutes on Thursday, May 16 with a goal of bringing the university community together to create collective impact.

The event lasts for 1960 minutes in honor of the year the university was founded. The clock starts on May 16 at 6 a.m. and runs until 2 p.m. on May 17.

To make Giving Day a bit more fun, several generous donors have created matching gift challenges for Jacobs School of Engineering projects.

Summer EnVision Experience interns and their mentors with the exhibit they designed and built for Birch Aquarium.

The Charles Lee Powell Foundation will donate $10,000 for every 10 gifts made—no matter the size— to the EnVision Arts and Engineering Maker Studio Fund, up to $50,000. Support of this fund will provide sophomore and junior engineering students with hands-on experience creating, pitching and developing a project from start to finish through the Summer EnVision Experience internship. During the internship, undergraduate students work in multidisciplinary teams on projects that are integrated with the local San Diego community. Last summer, student interns designed and built a new exhibit for Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Over the course of 10 weeks, the students put to practice the technical skills they’ve learned in the classroom, while learning first-hand the importance of project management, team building and documentation. Students tackle tough engineering and user experience challenges, but also navigate the added factors of time, budget, and teamwork on their project.

In addition, Luis Pineda, an electrical engineering alumnus who retired as a senior vice president from Qualcomm, has also issued a challenge: for every five gifts made to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering’s Charles Tu CORE Fund, Pineda has pledged an additional $1,000 to the department, up to $10,000.

A sampling of some of the robots students build through the Project in a Box outreach program.

The fund supports electrical and computer engineering outreach efforts. These outreach programs benefit both the K-12 and undergraduate engineering students who participate by learning and growing with each other. Outreach is meant to inspire the next generation of engineers through positive and fulfilling engagement at an early age by providing opportunities to learn about a future in the field of engineering.

Project in a Box is one example of the outreach activities that electrical and computer engineering students spearhead. The group’s work to make electrical engineering come alive for young students by helping them build their own robots was featured in this video and story by CBS 8.

This inaugural Giving Day will bring UC San Diego communities together for one unique giving period to create a collective impact. By combining our voices and highlighting our strengths, we can attract more attention, more support and continue our efforts to solve more of the world’s greatest challenges. We hope you’ll join us.

Media Contacts

Katherine Connor
Jacobs School of Engineering
858-534-8374
khconnor@ucsd.edu