First Embry-Riddle Student Selected as 2000 Gates Millennium Scholar

Bianco, son of Ernesto and Nilda Bianco, is a junior majoring in aeronautical science at Embry-Riddle's Daytona Beach campus and holds a commercial pilot instrument rating. Bianco is a graduate of the National High School of Technical Education in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Gates Millennium Scholars initiative, funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and administered by the United Negro College Fund and partners, aims to expand the access of low-income minority students to higher education. Students are awarded scholarship money based on financial need, academic performance, ethnicity, and community involvement.

Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corporation, and his wife, Melinda, have endowed their foundation with more than $17 billion to support philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning with the hope that advances in these critical areas will be available for all people. The foundation has selected 4,100 students from 62,000 applicants to receive Gates Millennium Scholarships in the inaugural year of the award program. Over the next 20 years the Gates Millennium Scholars awards will enable 20,000 young Americans to attend undergraduate and graduate institutions of their choice.

Bianco has a cumulative G.P.A. of 3.9, was on Embry-Riddle's dean's list from Fall 1998 through Spring 2000, and was an Embry-Riddle student employee of the year nominee in 2000. He served as a student ambassador at Embry-Riddle's Industry/Career Expo in 1998 and 1999, was an assistant at the university's Student Leadership Conference in 1998, and was a translator and guide for the U.S. team at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 1998.

Embry-Riddle, the world's largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, meets the needs of students and industry through its educational, training, research, and consulting activities. Embry-Riddle educates 22,000 students through the master's level at residential campuses in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Prescott, Ariz., at more than 100 teaching sites in the United States and Europe, and through distance learning.