AXA Advisors Southwest, a leading provider of financial services for consumers and businesses, has announced that Anvita Gupta, a high school senior attending BASIS in Scottsdale, will receive $25,000 as a national winner of the 2015 AXA Achievementsm Scholarship in association with U.S. News & World Report. 

Gupta is one of 52 students – one from each state, plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico – that has been awarded scholarships of $10,000. Of those 52 students, only 10 nationwide – including Gupta – were chosen to receive an additional $15,000 scholarship award. All of the scholarship recipients are graduating high school seniors who demonstrated ambition and drive, determination to set and reach goals and the ability to succeed in college.

“Though not yet out of high school, Anvita founded non-profit organization LITAS For Girls, an after-school program that aims to inspire middle school girls to pursue computing careers by introducing them to computer science technologies,” says Philip Kim, senior vice president and director of retirement benefits at AXA Advisors Southwest, who serves as office champion of the scholarship program. “During Anvita’s year-long program, students learn visual programming, game development, and app development.”

According to Kim, LITAS mentors students to eventually develop their own project to solve a social program of their choice, using the technology skills they have learned. At the end of the program, the girls present their project in a Technology Showcase to several women CEOs of technology corporations.

In addition to Gupta, AXA Advisors Southwest is pleased to announce five fellow Arizona students will each receive $2,500 as winners of the 2015 AXA Achievementsm Community Scholarship program. They are:

• Mathew Kaplan of the Tesseract School in Phoenix

Sara Mavis of Nogales High School in Nogales

Selvam Sathana of Prescott High School in Prescott

Tata Bharath of Hamilton High School in Chandler

Meagan Bethel of Tucson High Magnet School

The program is administered by Scholarship Management Services®, a program of Scholarship America®, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit private sector and educational support organizations.

Funded by the AXA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of AXA Advisors, AXA Achievement was established to address the financial barriers faced by college bound high school students. Another component is the highly successful AXA Achievementsm Scholarship in association with U.S. News & World Report, which awards $670,000 in annual scholarships. Since the program began, AXA Achievement has awarded $22.8 million in college scholarships to more than 5,100 students. 

“Our Southwest branch has a history of community involvement and we are proud to provide information and support to families so that they can help their children financially prepare for, attend and succeed in college,” commented Dillan Micus, Executive Vice President of AXA Advisors Southwest, recently honored as a 2015 Governor’s Volunteer Service Award Winner.  “AXA Advisors is about investments, and we consider these scholarships an investment in these students and in our community.”