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UCL-supported entrepreneur wins prestigious Commonwealth award

21 March 2025

UCL graduate and entrepreneur Zubair Junjunia, who founded EdTech startup ZNotes, has been named the Europe regional winner of the 2025 Commonwealth Youth Award for Excellence in Development Work.

Zubair Junjunia

The Commonwealth Youth Awards celebrate the contributions of young people in working towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals and enhancing development in their communities and beyond. Each regional winner received £3,000 to support their work.

Zubair (UCL Mathematics 2020) was one of the regional winners, chosen from over 800 applications from around the world.

His startup, ZNotes, is an award-winning EdTech platform working to address educational inequality by providing access to high-quality learning resources and peer-learning support for exam preparation.

Zubair was presented with his award at a ceremony held at Marlborough House on the 12 March. He also had the opportunity to present his work earlier that week to His Majesty King Charles III during Commonwealth Day.

Zubair said: “It is an incredible honour to be named a Commonwealth Youth Award winner, representing the Europe region. Over 60% of ZNotes users come from Commonwealth countries, and this recognition strengthens our commitment to deepening our impact in local curricula.

“We’ve already begun this journey of localisation with Pakistan, India, and Nigeria, and with the support and opportunities this award brings, we are excited to scale our work further and empower even more learners."

ZNotes has reached over six million learners and has had over forty million hits in nearly 200 countries. ZNotes has received the Global EdTech Award by QS and was listed in the HolonIQ Top 200 Europe EdTech Startups.

In 2021, Zubair received the Diana Legacy Award, in recognition of his exceptional contribution to education. Named after Diana, Princess of Wales, it’s recognised as the highest accolade a young person can receive for their social and humanitarian efforts

He said: "My time at UCL shaped not just my academic journey but also my path as an entrepreneur.

“While I pursued mathematics out of passion, it was UCL’s Innovation & Enterprise team that helped me take ZNotes from a school project to an award-winning edtech startup.

“With their support, I secured funding, built an evidence framework with the IOE – Faculty of Education and Society – and developed ZNotes into a scalable platform.

“UCL also enabled me to remain in the UK as an entrepreneur, setting the foundation for the work we do today.

“Thousands of UCL undergraduates have used ZNotes as part of their learning journey, many have joined our internship program, and my first London-based hire was a UCL student.

“The university played a critical role in our early growth and has given me a deep appreciation of the role institutions like UCL play in shaping future change-makers."

While studying at UCL, ZNotes was part of the Hatchery incubator programme at BaseKX, UCL’s dedicated entrepreneurship hub.

Here Zubair had access to tailored advice, mentorship and free office space. He was also supported in obtaining a Tier 1 Entrepreneur visa, to enable him to continue growing the company in the UK after graduating.

Professor Geraint Rees (Vice-Provost, UCL Research, Innovation & Global Engagement) said: “Many congratulations to Zubair, a pioneering leader who is redefining learning in the digital age and tackling inequality in education through ZNotes.

“His startup shows what is possible when we embrace technology innovation, AI and combine this with a commitment to improving people’s lives.

“Zubair has been an inspiration for our teams to work with and he remains a key part of our UCL community.”

ZNotes was recently accepted onto the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Education Equity Initiative, a $100m programme supporting scalable education solutions.

ZNotes has also been selected as a UCL case study for the Universities UK startup campaign, which launched on 20 March.

The Commonwealth Youth Awards are organised by the Commonwealth Youth Programme, which aims to engage and empower young people to enhance their contribution to development.

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