ICC-AIP Scholarship is a creation of collaborative efforts of Asian Indian Professionals (AIP) and Indian Cultural Center (ICC). AIP was founded in 1985 to bring together Physicians and other professionals of the Delaware Valley. AIP saw a need to help college students of Indian Origin from Delaware Valley and started to collect donations from individual donors for this cause. In 1992, AIP started to grant scholarships to deserving college students of Indian origin in Delaware Valley. Over the years, AIP collected funds from many generous donors and got significant boost when Dr. Dev Gupta donated $200,000 for the scholarship fund. To date, over half a million dollars have been awarded to many deserving students based on merit and need.
Both AIP and ICC serve the same community and have overlapping charitable missions. AIP believed that the human resource challenges and administrative costs associated with maintaining a 501(c)(3) were no longer the most effective mechanism for fulfilling its mission of providing scholarships to students of Asian Indian decent. ICC is interested in expanding its community service programs to include providing scholarships to students of Asian Indian decent. By combining programs, the two organizations would create a single program with a larger fundraising base, larger marketing reach and reduced administrative costs. The Boards of AIP and ICC believed this transfer is in the best interests of both institutions. Subsequently in 2020, AIP and ICC Boards agreed on transferring AIP Scholarship Funds to ICC and start ICC-AIP Scholarship. The fund got another shot in the arm with a very generous donation of $150,000 from one of ICC’s Grand Benefactors Sailesh and Manidipa Chowdhury.
ICC-AIP Scholarship is to be awarded to College Students of Indian Origin from Delaware Valley. Students are required to submit a completed Scholarship Application along with supporting documents – most recent tax returns, proof of college admission and most recent academic transcript. Applicants are also required to submit a Personal Statement as to why we should consider their candidacy, list all awards, honors, scholarships and extracurricular activities, community services and write a summary statement in support of application including any special circumstances that should be considered. Scholarship committee is in charge of selecting deserving students based on financial need, merit and any special circumstances without knowing identity of these students. Scholarship committee also decides the total amount to be distributed and amounts of individual awards. Top three scholarships are named “Krishna Gupta Memorial Scholarship”. Scholarship recipients are announced at the Annual Scholarship Award banquet, usually held in the fall; and scholarship checks are distributed during this event.
Members of the Scholarship Committee are:
Dr. Manzoor Abidi (Chair), Dr. Dhiraj Panda, Dr. Parveen Verma, Mr. Sailesh Chowdhury, Yasmeen Khaleel Esq., Dr. Amrita Desai and Dr. Rakesh Gupta.
For any questions, please email scholarship@iccofsj.org.
ICC-AIP Scholarship Committee