News

Wednesday 21 March 2007

High-achieving students return home from international conference

A group of Nottingham Trent University students have returned home from an international conference in the United Arab Emirates after rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s greatest minds. Ten students - the largest number of winners from any UK university – were handed the chance of a lifetime when they were selected to go to the prestigious Education Without Borders 2007 in Abu Dhabi.

Nobel Prize winners, along with business, education, technology and government leaders, attended the biennial conference, which aims to create networks across cultures to understand and generate solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges. They were joined by 1,000 of the world’s most innovative students from more than 100 countries, selected to attend on the quality of papers they submitted to organisers.

The ten Nottingham students – from eight different nationalities – listened to the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus; Nobel Laureate, Rita Lev-Montalcini; and Professor Johannes Georg Bednorz, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics 20-years-ago.

And the managing director of CNN International, Chris Cramer; the founder and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Laboratory, Nicholas Negroponte; and Dr Shashi Tharoor, the official candidate of India for the succession of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last year, spoke at the event.

The Nottingham Trent University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Neil Gorman, was also invited to be a guest speaker.

So impressed were the organisers with one Nottingham Trent University student’s submission, that he was given the opportunity to present his paper to delegates at the conference. Stuart Easter, a PGCE (Secondary) student took centre stage to communicate his ideas on how e-learning could be used to create wealth in developing countries.

Stuart (21) presented his paper – The Convergence of Humanity and Technology: E-Learning as a Tool to Create Wealth in Developing Countries – alongside other high-achieving students from major institutions across the globe.

Under the conference section Harnessing Education and Technology to End Poverty, his paper covered the history of e-learning, its implementation in the developed world and how this can be echoed in the developing world.

Stuart said:

“The whole experience was incredible. I met so many people who shared my thoughts and opinions and who I will definitely be keeping in touch with in the future. My presentation was very well received and I had some positive feedback, which meant a lot to me, especially when coming from representatives of developing regions whose future depends on the results of such conferences.”

He added:

“The conference was the chance of a lifetime for me, and I would recommend other students take up the opportunity at the next conference in two years’ time.”

Nottingham Trent University’s International Development Director, Tim O’ Brien, said:

“As the world becomes more interdependent, it is vital that universities become more global in their outlook in order to serve the needs of their students. Shashi Tharoor pointed out we live in a world of ‘problems that have no passports’ – pandemic disease, pollution, climate change, global terrorism and so on.”

He added:

“Education Without Borders provided our students with a unique and important opportunity to help engage in that debate with people who have and will shape our future. The students are an enormous credit to the university, representing the depth and breadth of talent, cultures and energy which help define what Nottingham Trent University is all about.”

Notes for editors: Education Without Borders engages the world’s most innovative students and leaders of business, technology, education and the humanitarian sector in a collaborative forum that culminates with commitment to action.

It aims to:

• Provide a forum of mutual respect and understanding for participants from six continents.
• Build a network of highly achieving college, business and governmental leaders around the globe.
• Share and discuss solutions to some of the world’s most pressing social challenges.
• Inspire a commitment to social change in each country and community represented by its delegates.
• Ensure that commitments are implemented upon each delegate’s return to their home country.

To find out more about Education Without Borders 2007 visit the Education Without Borders website.

ENDS

Press enquiries please contact: Dave Rogers, Press Officer, on Tel: 0115 848 8782, or via email: dave.rogers@ntu.ac.uk

or Therese Easom, Press and Media Relations Manager, on Tel: 0115 848 8774, or via email: therese.easom@ntu.ac.uk