From the agricultural fields of Eastern Oregon to the rapidly developing worlds of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, three Oregon students are preparing to take their technology skills from high school classrooms into universities and, eventually, careers that could place them at the forefront of industries undergoing extraordinary change.
Evan Alvarez of Ontario, Roy Jones of Pendleton and Drishti Singh of Lake Oswego have been selected as the 2026 recipients of Rentec Direct’s Tech Mastery Scholarships. The Grants Pass-based software company established the program in 2016 to support Oregon students pursuing education in computer science, software development and related technological fields.
A decade after the first scholarships were awarded, the program has provided more than $15,000 to more than 30 students. Former recipients have continued their education at institutions including Oregon Institute of Technology, Oregon State University and Portland State University, while alumni have gone on to work for organizations ranging from Apple and Microsoft to NASA, Netflix, AT&T and Pfizer.
For this year’s recipients, technology is not confined to writing computer code. Their plans reach into agriculture, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, engineering, entrepreneurship and public policy, providing a glimpse at how broadly technical education is becoming integrated into Oregon’s future workforce.
Alvarez, an Ontario High School graduate, will attend Boise State University after building a high school record that combined technology with leadership. He served as Student Council president and National Honor Society vice president while completing dual-credit college coursework involving cybersecurity and technology.
His experience also moved beyond traditional academics. Alvarez has worked with website development and entrepreneurship, exploring ways technology can improve efficiency while remaining practical and accessible to the people who use it. Those experiences have given him exposure to both the technical and business sides of an industry where successful products increasingly require an understanding of each.
In Pendleton, Jones is bringing technology directly into an industry deeply rooted in Oregon’s history.
The Baker Early College valedictorian plans to attend Eastern Oregon University, where he intends to pursue dual majors in Computer Science and Agricultural Systems Technology. His educational direction combines a multigenerational family connection to farming with robotics, engineering and computer science.
Jones captained the Pendleton High School robotics team, participated on a curriculum steering committee for the Oregon Department of Education and works as an engineering intern at the Pendleton Unmanned Aerial Systems Range. His long-term interests include robotic agricultural systems designed to help farmers manage environmental conditions, workforce demands and the increasingly sophisticated requirements of modern food production.
The connection between agriculture and computer science is becoming increasingly visible in farming communities where drones, automated machinery, sensors, data analysis and robotic systems are changing how producers monitor crops and manage operations. For Jones, those technologies provide a way to combine his family’s agricultural background with an education centered on engineering and computing.
Singh will take another branch of technology into one of the nation’s prominent computer science programs. The Lakeridge High School graduate has been accepted to Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science for fall 2026.
Her preparation includes Advanced Placement computer science coursework and internships involving virtual reality development and data analytics. She also leads a student task force focused on educating students about artificial intelligence and its implications.
Singh’s academic interests center on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and public policy, particularly the challenge of protecting computer systems and the people whose information passes through them. Her career plans envision work alongside software engineers, security specialists, researchers and policymakers as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly incorporated into government, business and everyday technology.
She has identified organizations including DARPA, OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and federal research laboratories as examples of the environments where those disciplines converge. Scholarship assistance will also help ease the financial demands of higher education for her family as she begins university studies.
Although Alvarez, Jones and Singh are headed toward different specialties, their paths share a common starting point: Oregon students taking skills developed in their own communities and applying them to fields that increasingly influence nearly every sector of the economy.
The scholarship program itself carries a distinctly Southern Oregon connection. Rentec Direct operates from Grants Pass while serving customers nationally, demonstrating that technology businesses and the opportunities surrounding them are not limited to Portland, Seattle or Silicon Valley. A company headquartered in Josephine County is helping students from communities hundreds of miles apart move toward careers in some of the most technically demanding areas of the modern workforce.
For Alvarez, that journey leads through cybersecurity and entrepreneurship. For Jones, it runs through robotics and Oregon agriculture. For Singh, it reaches into artificial intelligence and digital security. Three Oregon communities, three different academic paths and one scholarship program are sending another class of students toward a technology landscape that continues to create new possibilities far beyond the computer screen.