‘Achievement, Dedication & Promise’: Manalapan Teen Named Amazon Future Engineer Scholar

MANALAPAN, NJ — A local high school student is making waves after being named as an Amazon Future Engineer Scholar, one of only 400 students nationwide selected for the scholarship in 2026.

Surya Gedipudi, an 18-year-old high school senior at High Technology High School in the Lincroft section of Middletown, was named an Engineer Scholar following years of courses in engineering and computer science that got him interested in the field.

Once the scholarship opened for applications during his senior year of high school, Gedipudi applied, highlighting his grades and extracurriculars in the process.

On April 8, Gedipudi was surprised by an Amazon Future Engineer Scholar Ambassador at his school to let him know he’d been chosen for the award.

“We [Gedipudi and his fellow students] were in the classroom, and the ambassador from Amazon came in to present about the scholarship,” Gedipudi told Patch. “They opened [the presentation] to a slide that said I won. It was a really big surprise.”

As an Engineer Scholar, Gedipudi will receive a $40,000 scholarship toward his undergraduate degree ($10,000 each year), as well as an offer to complete an internship at Amazon the summer after his freshman year.

The scholarship is designed to support students pursuing degrees in computer science and other STEM fields.

Requirements for the scholarship, according to the Amazon Future Engineer Scholarship website, include:

• Be a high school senior in the U.S. who is currently enrolled in or who has completed a high school or college dual degree course where computer science is the subject. (Students who have not taken this course can opt in to take an assessment offered by Amazon).
• Be planning to attain a bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, or other computer science-related field of study from an accredited 4-year college or from a two-year college with the intent to transfer to a four-year college.
• Must be authorized to work in the U.S.
• Have a minimum cumulative grade point average of 2.3 on a 4.0 scale (or its equivalent).
• Must demonstrate financial need.

“[The scholarship] opens up a lot of opportunities,” Gedipudi said. “Over the past few years, I’ve been working on some side projects and coding stuff, but now with the internship, I can really apply my technical skills, see how these things work in the real world, and get that industry experience.”

“It’s really great how Amazon believes in me and has awarded me with this scholarship,” he continued.

While Gedipudi isn’t sure where he’ll be attending college yet, he’s currently looking to pursue the technology or finance fields, something that he said the Engineer Scholarship will help him achieve.

“This recognition reflects Surya’s academic achievement, dedication, and promise in STEM,” High Technology High School said in an online post. “We congratulate him on this outstanding accomplishment.”

To learn more about the Amazon Future Engineer Scholarship, you can visit their website.