Every year, a few Fulbright students who are facing significant physical or neurodiversity challenges will be able to receive financial aid from Wheel Cards Scholarship. This scholarship is established through the generosity and commitment of Wheel Cards to support college students with disabilities in Vietnam.
The scholarship awards 467,600,000 VND/ student per year in 4 years, in which 81,830,000 VND is to support to students’ financial aid package and 35,070,000 VND to “Opportunity Fund” that recipients can use for non-tuition related academic activities, extracurricular and/or self-development opportunities such as conducting research projects, conferences, devices purchasing, community services, taking on internship or student-proposed activities agreed by university administrations.
As the world’s first wheelchair/ disabilities-related NFT project, Wheel Cards has garnered much interest from people around the globe. The project was featured on Binance’s NFT platform along with Maye Musk, the mother of Elon Musk. Featuring pixelated characters in wheelchairs, Wheel Cards were sold out in mere seconds when first introduced.
Wheel Cards was founded with a mission to raise awareness about wheelchairs and disabilities in the Web 3.0 Metaverse space. The founder, Kunho Kim, spent his youth in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam before attending Harvard in 2012. While at Saigon South International School, Kunho learned of the difficulties Vietnamese people with disabilities face daily. Kunho founded one of the first student-initiated non-profit organizations to donate wheelchairs to paraplegic patients in Vietnam.
With the mission to create a more disability-friendly world, the Wheel Cards team decided to create a scholarship specifically to financially aid students with disabilities and/or neurodiversity challenges at Fulbright University Vietnam. Nam Tran, former Director of Development and Strategic Initiatives, stated, “The Wheel Cards scholarship can help raise awareness about disabilities in Vietnam and become a catalyst to create a more equitable world for students with disabilities. We at Fulbright University are excited to work with Wheel Cards team to embrace new technology including blockchain, and the possibility of a more inclusive future that Wheel Cards is envisioning.”
Being the world’s first NFT project to create a scholarship program, Kunho hopes that the Wheel Cards scholarship can leave a positive impact. “This was my childhood dream to give back to a society where everyone helped me become who I am right after I had a ski accident in Montana, USA eleven years ago. I hope with this scholarship students with disabilities could advance into any area they want to without much financial burden while studying at Fulbright University. Our team is very grateful to a community of supporters who made this possible and hopes to continue supporting more students with disabilities in the future with our Wheel Cards community members.”