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Monthly archives: December 2011

Study Scholarships visit part 3 — Burkina Faso

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Soon after our visit to Zambia, Niklas and I left Stockholm once again, this time for Burkina Faso (West Africa), another country the Study Scholarship Program targets. For the fall semester of 2011, Sweden only managed to attract one student from Burkina, currently at Uppsala University. With our visit, we hoped to positively improve the number of Scholarship applicants for the fall semester of 2012.

Once in Burkina Faso our first impression, being from Sweden, was the fantastic weather: we were swept away with Sub-Saharan temperatures of approximately 38 degrees Celsius on a daily basis, even though the country was getting closer to what they called ”winter”.

Panorama view of Ougadougo, capital of Burkina Faso

Our first visit was to the University of Bobo, a four-hour drive from Ouagadougo (the capital of Burkina Faso). We where very lucky to have the opportunity to speak to some 200 students.

Meeting students at University of Bobo-Dioulasso

Leaving Bobo, to drive back to Ougadougo where we where staying, we were lucky enough to pass the beautiful Grand Mosque in Bobo, built in the late 1880´s.

Grand Mosque in Bobo Dioulasso

Back in Ouagadougou we spent the next few days visiting a number of universities, one of them the University of Ouagadougou with over 35,000 students at Bachelor and Masters levels. Along with the students we met, we also met with government officials.

On the left; Owe Andersson Chargé d'Affaires in Burkina Faso, followed by Head of Assambus, Researcher and Niklas Dahlberg last on the right.

We managed to catch up with the local alumni association “Swedish and Burkina be friendship association” in Swedish: ”Vänskapsföreningen Burkina Faso – Sverige ASSAMBUS-BF”.

An extraordinary experince for us was the press confrence held on December 1, the same date as Universityadmissions.se opened for international applicants. Visit our Youtube channel to se the TV interview and coverage, in French. As a result, we increased the number of visits to www.studyinsweden.se from Burkina Faso with an astonishing 25000%.

Maureen Hoppers - Alumni

December 14, 2011

Challenge Yourself India 2011

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Happy 1st prize winners

The challenge that tested the skills, knowledge and motivation of Indian students was launched in October and attracted over 1900 talented contestants. Out of them 9 winners managed to reach the final and the grand prize ceremony that was held during Sweden Education Day at R.V College of Engineering in Bangalore the 2nd of December.

There was a great deal of excitement in the jam-packed seminar room when the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winners were announced. Andreas Muranyi, Science & Technology Counsellor at the Swedish Embassy, handed out the prizes and besides Ipads, books and diploma the finalists received long applauses and cheering from the audience.

A festive celebration ceremony was later held at Vivanta by Taj for the first prize winners that got a full tuition fee waiver at 3 of Sweden’s leading universities.

Smarjeet Sharma from Birla Institute of Technology and Science was the happy winner of a full tuition fee waiver for the master’s program in Wireless Communication at Lund University. The fee waiver at Chalmers University for the master of Technology-Automotive Engineering went to Rakesh Sridhar from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras and Vikas Chauhan from BITS Pilani won a place at the masters in Embedded Systems at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Second place winners were Bharat Mohan from Vellore Institute of Technology, Peter Sam Raj from Indian Institute of Technology and Deepanker Parik, also from Vellore Institute of Technology.

3rd price winners

The third prices went to Vibhor Jain, Vellore Institute of Technology, Saideep Bollam
Vellore Institute of Technology and Shubham Dwivedi from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.

A big congratulation to all the winners!

For more information about the challenge and a list of all the winners and participants visit www.challengeyourself.in

On our webpage Studyinsweden.se we are from time to time presenting challenges and competitions that grant scholarships at Swedish universities. Currently, there is a challenge online targeting Chinese students arranged by Chalmers University together with Volvo cars: Talentrace

So go ahead, challenge yourself!

Malin Hassler - Study

December 13, 2011

Study Scholarships visit to Zambia, part 2; Alumni Event, Career Expo & Kabwe

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The second day we woke up early to prepare for “Career Expo”, the largest educational fair in Zambia. We were lucky enough to hold a presentation to over 50 students about Sweden, higher education in Sweden and the Study Scholarship program. It was a great success and we hope to meet some of them in Sweden in the future. We were surprised to learn that they are quite familiar with Sweden, one of the many areas of familiarity with Sweden, rather than Zlatan, was Dag Hammarskjöld, one of Swedens most famous Peacemakers. 

Right top & bottom: At the beutiful Career Expo in Zambia with students Left: With the Head of Dag Hammarskjöld Institution and in the bakground the Swedish School of Lusaka

 Since we spent most of the first day in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, we were delighted that we got the opportunity to visit the University of Mulungushi in Kabwe (a 3h drive northeast of Lusaka).

University of Mulungushi, Zambia

One of the most exciting events for me, being the Alumni manager at SI, was the reception as the ambassador’s residence where we met former international students to Sweden, and was graced by Zambias current Finance Minister Alexande Chickwanda who studied at Lund University  in the late 1960´s. Most still spoke Swedish!  More about the event on the Swedish Embassys website: http://www.swedenabroad.com/News____109603.aspx?slaveid=133631

Seeing that Sweden only has a handful of scholarship holders from Zambia currently in Sweden, we hope that this visit will help increase the number of applications for the current application period that opened the 1st of December. We rounded off a few but fantastic days in Zambia with lots of impressions. For more information about the scholarship program visit www.studyinsweden.se/study-scholarships

Maureen Hoppers - Alumni

December 8, 2011

Sweden Education Day in Bangalore, India

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The Study in Sweden team is now in place in Bangalore and has hosted “Sweden Education Day” together with the Swedish Trade Council, the Swedish Embassy and Sweden’s leading universities. The education day, dedicated to Swedish higher education, was kindly hosted by RV College and attracted over 500 students.

The event was inaugurated in the traditional Indian way by the lightening of a lamp and the principal of RV college, Prof. B.S Satyanarayana, held a welcoming speech. Quickly the seminar room was filled with students and the crowd could listen to an inspiring presentation by Donnie S.C Lygonis on how to convert your ideas into tangible business. Donnie was followed by Mr Solomon Ravikumar, VP Human Resources for Volvo India,  and Mr Patrik Woodrow, General Manager, Volvo Trucks, that talked about the great job opportunities that Indian students have after studying in Sweden.

After that I presented Sweden as a study destination, before the seminar session was then rounded off with the  announcement of the winners of the competition “Challenge Yourself India”. More about this in the next blog post and also about our participation at the QS fairs in Bangalore and Chennai.

The students then moved outside to the sunny courtyard on campus to mingle and talk to the university representatives.  It was a great opportunity for students to learn about Swedish higher education and for the universities to meet prospect students. Many of the students wanted to talk to Donnie and test their ideas.

It was full activity until the end of the day, with many happy faces and interest from the students!
The Study in Sweden- team in India

Niclas Boborg - Study

December 7, 2011

Study Scholarships visit to Zambia, part 1 from Lusaka

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The Swedish Institute Study Scholarships Program visits Zambia and Burkina Faso to talk about the new scholarship program that targets students from Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

In mid-November me and my colleague Niklas Dahlberg, program Officer for the Study Scholarships, landed in Lusaka with a full program of visits to Universities and market the Scholarship program.

Down Town Lusaka, the capital of Zambia

Our first visit was to the largest, University of Zambia (UNZA) where we met the Vice-Chancellor who has been to Sweden on numerous occasions. We also had the opportnity to meet with Headsof Institutions at the University as well as a Postdoc currently at UNZA and Umeå University (in Sweden). We rounded off our visit with a radio interview at UNZA Radio. The University has approx. 16 000 students at BA and Master level, we were also received a wonderful tour of the Campus and the 14 storied library filled with students preparing for exams.

Visit to University of Zambia Radio (UNZA Radio), University of Lusaka and the Swedish Embassy

We rounded off the first day after visits to University of Lusaka (UNILUS) and Evelyn Hone College where Niklas held a presentation about the opportunities within the scholarship program.

At University of Zambia (UNZA) with Vice Chancellor and senior staff

For more information about the scholarship program visit www.studyinsweden.se/study-scholarships

Maureen Hoppers - Alumni

December 6, 2011