President’s Award For Global Learning Winners Honored at Celebration Dinner

Students and faculty from across disciplines gathered to celebrate the five winning teams of the President’s Award For Global Learning at an awards dinner hosted by senior university leadership. After months of researching, presenting and competing among several other finalists, these teams will take their innovative projects abroad to their project sites next summer.

The winners, representing 10 colleges and schools, have proposed solutions to some of the most intractable issues around the globe, such as gaps in healthcare, sustainable fashion practices and the potential of self-driving vehicles.

President Gregory L. Fenves joined Provost Maurie McInnis and Senior Vice Provost for Global Engagement Sonia Feigenbaum in congratulating the teams and presenting them with awards onstage.

“The scope and the ambition of the projects are truly extraordinary,” Fenves said during his remarks at the event. “They recognize some of the starkest challenges that face a broad range of populations around the world. One of the things I find most gratifying in this process is the feeling that the world is going to be in a good shape because of our students.”

The award, created in 2018 by the International Board of Advisors, is a key program led by Texas Global and supported by senior leadership of the university, and plays a major role in expanding UT’s global network.

Bill Bollinger, UT Alum (BBA’78, MBA’80) and member of the International Board of Advisors, attended the awards ceremony with his wife, Judy. He shared with the teams advice on the value of building relationships, both during the program and throughout their careers.

“The problems we are dealing with today are incredibly complex and they require collaborative solutions that are cross-cultural, cross-national and across different academic disciplines in order to have any chance of solving them,” Bollinger explained to the winning teams. “As you go out into the world, you’re going to encounter people from different cultures, nationalities, races, and intellectual abilities, and I hope you will be open to changing your views while still remaining true to yourselves. There’s a great amount of goodness in people; search it out and I am sure you will have an amazing experience.”

View photos from the event below.

How Autonomous Vehicles Might Aid Vulnerable Populations: A Case Study in Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games

A Bittersweet Burden: Understanding Causes and Consequences of Diabetes Complications Using Design – Thinking in Puebla, Mexico

Using Interprofessional Education to improve community health in Kenya

Sustainable Embellishments for the Apparel and Textile Industry in Copenhagen 

Developing Equality: Creating a Mobile Application to Address Health Inequalities for LGBTQ+ South Indians

UT Alum Bill Bollinger gives advice to the winning teams who will soon go abroad to implement their projects

Senior Vice Provost for Global Engagement Sonia Feigenbaum congratulates the winning teams

Electrical Engineering student Kanishka Mitra expresses what the award means to him and his team studying diabetes in Mexico

Teri Albrecht, Interim Executive Director of Texas Global, congratulates faculty and student members of the winning teams

The five winning teams gathered with senior leadership of the university at the end of the event