Does the word candidate have to refer to a person?

I was helping a friend create a motivational letter for a scholarship and I wrote a sentence in the lines of: "(...), which would qualify my project as a candidate for the Program".

We changed this because my friend suggested the word candidate can only refer to a person. Notably the Merriam-Webster dictionary lists only the uses that refer to people.

However lately I've seen a few uses of the word when refering to objects, primarly in tech articles. So can this word be used in a broader sense?

Solution 1:

Collins definition 4 has the following (my emphasis):

A candidate is a person or thing that is regarded as being suitable for a particular purpose or as being likely to do or be a particular thing.

I use 'candidate' a lot in this sense, drawing up lists of software bug fixes to be considered for inclusion in a new release.

Solution 2:

The use of candidate for a project is, I believe, supported by all dictionaries. The difference between Merriam-Webster's and Oxford's or Collins' wording is no coincidence:

one likely or suited to undergo or be chosen for something specified

vs.

A person or thing ...

If we look up one we find, among others:

a certain indefinitely indicated person or thing.

It's simply that "one that ..." can be a person or thing; the quoted dictionaries agree, but M-W is more concise.

This is corroborated by M-W's entry for victim:

one that is acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agent: the schools are victims of the social system

Solution 3:

No, it can refer to any noun. If you want to further clarify, you can use candidate as an adjective: "...which would qualify (project name) as a candidate project for the program."