About Us
Our Mission: Opening Doors for Future Innovators
The Naumann Etienne Foundation was established in the year 2000 by Rüdiger Naumann Etienne.
Providing full financial support for exceptional students from Eastern Europe and East Germany is the purpose of the NEF. We want to enable to graduate study at Georgia Tech, removing financial obstacles and broadening global opportunities—a tribute to Georgia Tech’s legacy of education and inclusion.
A few words from the founder:
“While a student at the TU Berlin in 1969 I received a World Student Fund (WSF) scholarship to attend Georgia Tech. Earning a Masters degree at Georgia Tech changed my life. It opened opportunities for further study and a successful career in the U.S.
The Naumann-Etienne Foundation was set up in 2000 to provide a similar experience: a full scholarship to earn a masters degree at Georgia Tech unimpeded by financial concerns.
The scholarship is open to Masters students from technical universities in the former East Germany and Eastern Europe. Given my own roots in Leipzig, I wanted to specifically encourage students from areas which with the fall of the Berlin Wall suddenly had access to U.S. universities but did not have funds to to pay for this opportunity.
The focus is on study areas in which Georgia Tech has a leading role: Industrial Engineering, Information & Computer Sciences, Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. The scholarship was also meant to expand on the tradition of the WSF to bring together students with different political and social experiences. The WSF was created in 1950 by students at Georgia Tech to offer scholarships to students from former enemy countries. The funds were raised during the homecoming football game. The need to further a dialogue between young people from different countries continues unabated.
Funding the scholarships was also an attempt to give back to Georgia Tech as a thank you for a great education.”