protege

A protege is a person who is guided and supported by a more experienced mentor, sponsor, or organization. The relationship—often informal or formal—helps the protege develop skills, advance in a career, and gain opportunities. The mentor offers advice, introductions, training, and sometimes resources.

Etymology and spelling: The term derives from French protégé, meaning "protected one." In English it is used with or without the acute accent on the final e; protégé is the preferred form in formal writing, though protege is widely used, especially in American English. The term has gender-neutral usage in modern English but historically referred to a male or female depending on the noun.

Scope and use: Protégés are found in many fields such as arts, sciences, business, politics, and education. The relationship may be between a senior researcher and junior colleague, a celebrity and a chosen successor, or a teacher and a student in professional development contexts.

Computing sense: Protégé is also the name of a free, open-source ontology editor and knowledge-base framework used to create and edit ontologies in OWL, RDF, and related standards. It is developed at Stanford University and supported by a community of researchers and practitioners. It features a plugin architecture and is widely used in semantic web and bioinformatics.