Alwan Engineering Scholarship

Established 2013

Basil H. Alwan (BS CompE '84) established this scholarship because he and his brothers, Joe (BSEE' 83) and James (PhD '94), received great educations and had amazing, formative life experiences at Illinois. Given such luck, he felt it would be fun and right to "pay it forward," as the saying goes. The three grew up on their family's small farm near Sycamore, Illinois, where they learned to work and came to enjoy problem solving activities like fixing tractors and equipment. Timing matters, and as fate would have it, they came into high school when personal computers were just emerging. With some encouragement from their parents, their interest flourished and a fun journey began for the brothers.

Basil explained, "In retrospect, I have come to understand that dreaming is a form of planning. Watching Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and others create companies became a dream to start a company. With this underlying dream, some luck and some great friends a plan formed in 1999 with TiMetra Inc. - a start-up focused on the design and development IP routing systems. After focus and effort over more than a decade TiMetra-based systems now run a good portion of the global internet. A dream became a plan and brought forth a reality. I hope this scholarship helps some dreamers realize their next step!"

Selection Process:

Given as a freshman recruiting scholarship.

Award:

The recipient(s) will be recognized during an annual Student Awards Banquet. All student recipients are featured on the second floor of the ECE Building's Student Honors Wall.

Past Recipients of the Award