As the year draws to an end, we are looking back at our talented students and alumni’s biggest achievements from 2021. Together we have achieved many outstanding things throughout the year, so it was difficult to select just a few. But we’ve narrowed it down to our top 5 highlights of 2021.
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New beginnings can be challenging, especially when it comes to periods as major as transitioning to university. UCL students this year have many new beginnings to look forward to - for some, it will be the first time they meet their peers in person and study on campus.
To help students transition to university a group of BSc Information Management for Business students launched the IMB & Ryze Transition To University Collection app for incoming first and second-year students.
The collection was launched as a pilot project and is essentially a digital info hub containing videos and articles covering all the topics that former and current students reported relevant when coming to university. It’s broken down into sections called tracks, from a First Week checklist that no fresher wants to miss out on to a track covering everything one should know about finding a place to live in London.
What is unique about this project is that it is made for students by students. The content creators and editors for the collection are either former or current IMB students, who give honest and very detailed insights into their experiences so far.
Sonal Gupta wins Academic Representative of the year for the faculty
This year MSc Entrepreneurship student Sonal Gupta won the Student Academic Representatives (SAR) of the Faculty of Engineering. SAR’s are elected by their peers to represent the cohort’s views to the University, giving students the opportunity to have their opinions heard, encouraging collaborative action between the university and students. Each year UCL awards those SARs who have gone above and beyond for their communities. Sonal was one of only 11 students across UCL to win this prestigious award for 2020/2021.
Sonal was absolutely ecstatic to win the award and said she felt very special and humbled by the honour.
“As an Entrepreneurship student, this award just reaffirmed my belief that I am on the right path. Persistence, hard work and passion always pay off!”
PKU MBA team wins at Asia-Pacific Business Schools Desert Challenge
This May the Peking University National School of Development (NSD) MBA team took home a number of prizes at the 10th Asia-Pacific Business Schools Desert Challenge.
NSD, which is home to the UCL MBA with Peking University (PKU), took more than 100 students and alumni from as far back as 2004 to this year’s challenge, which was held in the Tengri Desert in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Our talented students and alumni prevailed in the individual competitions and the team also won the ‘Top Team’ award for the fifth time.
This year saw the participation of more than 4,000 contestants from 121 business schools in the Asia-Pacific region, making it the world’s largest on-foot desert competition. The challenge lasted three days and had three categories of distance: 100 km, 70 km and 36 km.
UK Tier 1 Global Visa Award from BSc IMB alumna
It was a double celebration for BSc Information Management for Business Alumna Slaviana Pavlovich, as she received the UK Tier 1 Global Talent Visa in Digital Technology and was selected to represent the UK as a Delegate at the 65th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
The global talent visa recognises Slaviana experience and expertise and her ability to become a tech leader, giving her the freedom to work in the UK on a flexible basis without employer sponsorship. The two-week annual global conference was dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women and brings together representatives from NGOs and UN delegates, grassroots organisations and activists to discuss and make progress on specific issues, from child marriage to equal pay, with Slaviana’s selection demonstrating her commitment to the empowerment of gender equality.
Magdalena Kron wins “Young Leader of the Year” Award
This year we celebrated the achievement of SoM alumna Magdalena Kron when she won the Young Leader of the Year Award. Since graduating with a Master’s in Entrepreneurship, Magdalena has been leading innovative startups to disrupt the financial industry using technology on a global scale.
We caught up with her after she received the award and she shared her experience in the industry and what winning the Young Leader of the Year Award meant to her, as well as the FinTech trends she advises us all to keep an eye on.
There have been many other exciting things happening behind the scenes, which we hope to share with you soon.
We look forward to what 2022 will bring and seeing what our talented students and alumni go on to do next. Watch this space to find out more…
