GUA News: Sinagpore Chapter launching soon
GUA Alumni It’s been a while — it's time to reconnect
April 8, 2026
by Diane Nolan
Reimagining the Global Undergraduate Awards Alumni Community
For 17 years, the Global Undergraduate Awards has celebrated the brightest minds across disciplines, recognising students and their ideas whose curiosity, originality and ambition set them apart. Yet recognition alone can only take potential and ambition so far.
Realising that while our alumni have gone on to do incredible things, we can do so much more to stay connected and support that journey, we are now taking deliberate steps to change that, creating opportunities for alumni to reconnect, collaborate and continue shaping ideas that reach far beyond.
Since its inception, the Global Undergraduate Awards has recognised students who demonstrate exceptional curiosity, originality and intellectual ambition. Each year, participants join a global cohort defined not only by academic excellence, but by a willingness to think beyond traditional boundaries.
However, we have always realised that recognition is only the starting point.
In recent months, we have been developing a new strageic approach to what it means to be part of our sphere of influence and reflecting on the role the Global Undergraduate Awards can play beyond the award itself. While the programme has successfully highlighted outstanding work and seen the metaoric rise of many of its alumni, we recognise that we have never been able to do enough to sustain meaningful engagement with our alumni community over time.
This presents both a challenge and an opportunity.
The opportunity is to build a more connected, dynamic and valuable network. One that enables currated metorship, interdisciplinary dialogue, supports emerging ideas and creates space for collaboration across regions and sectors.
We are now taking active steps towards this goal
We’ve always celebrated exceptional work, but we want our wider alumni community to be more than a moment of recognition. This expansion is part of our new GUA strategy initiative growing our reach and bringing people back into cross platform conversation, across disciplines and regions, and creating a space where ideas can be exchanged, collaborations can form and support is always available. We’re excited to see the community thrive in ways that extend far beyond the Awards themselves and become what we had always hoped for
Our approach begins with the development of regional chapters, designed to bring alumni together in more immediate and relevant contexts. These chapters will serve as hubs for conversation, collaboration and community-building.
The first of these beyond our shores will launch in Singapore, May 21st, where we will host an event bringing together alumni and regional leaders. This event will focus on reconnecting the community, understanding where alumni are now and identifying how the Global Undergraduate Awards can better support their ongoing work and ambitions.
Alongside this, we are developing a new platform to facilitate continued engagement, enabling alumni to connect, exchange ideas and collaborate beyond individual events.
This marks the beginning of a new phase for the Global Undergraduate Awards.
Our aim is to move from a moment of recognition to an ongoing relationship, and from a global network in theory to one that is active, engaged and impactful in practice.
We look forward to building this next chapter together.
Check your inbox for more information
