Remember the TV show MacGyver?  It revolved around an action hero who saved himself and the world with his vast scientific knowledge.  Well, now a group of science teachers and professors has created a competition to find the first female MacGyver.

For those of you young enough to have never seen an episode of MacGyver, he could pretty much take any ordinary item and save the world.  The series ran on ABC from 1985 to 1992, with Richard Dean Anderson starring as Angus MacGyver, a secret agent educated as a scientist.  The character actually became so popular, he got his own Saturday Night Live parody called MacGruber.

During the time the series aired, the fictional MacGyver inspired boys to study engineering.  Now the science community is hoping a new female MacGyver will do the same for women.  Currently, less than 20 percent of engineering bachelors degrees go to women, and trends point to even fewer in the future.

The hope is to create a slightly less funny, more brainy female MacGyver.  The University of Southern California’s School of Engineering has launched a competition for series ideas along with help from Washington's National Academy of Engineering and the MacGyver Foundation.

People are encouraged to send in ideas for a new TV show by April 17.  Five winners will receive $5.000 and be paired with producers to create a script, which will then be pitched to a TV network.  Organizers are hoping that a show featuring a female engineer will do for their field what the CSI series has done for forensic sciences.

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