A few highlights of Oxford Brookes alumni news from 2018.
Well connected with Brookes Connections
Students have been receiving career e-mentoring and advice from alumni through Brookes Connections since February 2018. The scheme has now been extended to allow recent (from the last 3 years) graduates to be mentored as well.
Students and recent graduates can match up with alumni in professional jobs for one-to-one e-mentoring for 4 to 6 weeks or simply ask one-off questions. The scheme runs on a purpose-built professional networking platform that enables participants to make the connections most relevant to their career aspirations.
“I wanted to help students with industry choices, specialist applications, typical job roles and how to best decide which direction to take their career. Students now are still struggling to find jobs, just as we did. Industry demands experience but it isn’t providing the opportunities, so knowing what skills you need for certain jobs is important to give direction to your studies.”
Krystina Emmanouilides ’13 – CFD Development Engineer and Brookes Connections Mentor
As well as finding it very rewarding to support students, alumni are also using it as a great resource for making professional contacts. The Brookes Connections 2018/19 programme of mentoring for students is already underway. Mentoring for recent graduates will start in January 2019 – along with a fresh round of student mentoring.
You can join the scheme at any time to start connecting with students and your fellow alumni right away.
Recent graduate wins Venturefest prize
Harry Hall ’18 won the Venturefest Oxford Pitching for Success competition with a cash prize of £1,000 to scale up his reusable coffee cup business. His start-up business, OneCup aims to reverse the habit of single use disposable food and drink containers by replacing them with quality reusables at the point of need, starting with coffee cups.
Earlier this year, Harry received funding and mentoring from the Brookes Enterprise Support Programme to trial his idea at one of the University’s cafes. He has since developed his business plan to specifically focus on coffee consumers. This includes creating an app that will allow OneCup members to borrow reusable coffee cups at their point of use through their smartphones and creating a monthly membership cup-loaning scheme.
Harry competed against nine other businesses at Venturefest Oxford – an annual networking event with over 750 entrepreneurs, innovators and investors – which was held at Oxford Brookes in September 2018.
Enterprise support is available to recent graduates - find out more
International alumni award recognises business innovation
In March 2018, alumnus Renat Galyamov ’10 was recognised at the Study UK Alumni Awards in Kazakhstan. Renat was presented with the Entrepreneurial Award which highlights alumni who have played a leading role in business innovation.
He single-handedly built Kazakhstan’s largest medical information technology product which connects patients with medical organisations and doctors across the country. His innovative service has already helped over 300,000 people to locate a qualified doctor.
Organised by the British Council, the awards celebrate UK higher education and the achievements of its alumni all over the world.