UCL welcomes first Technology Entrepreneurship Fulbright Scholar

Julie Markham - who is 27 and comes from the US - was selected out of hundreds of other applicants to benefit from the first scholarship, announced earlier this year. She will see the Fulbright Programme fully fund her through the Masters programme and provide a stipend for living expenses.

The Technology Entrepreneurship MSc equips graduates that have a strong desire to be an entrepreneur with the skills and knowledge needed to develop their own start-up businesses.

The programme provides an effective grounding across a wide range of the applied disciplines required for the effective management of technical ventures backed up with strong links to UCL Advances, which provides students and graduates who wish to develop their business ideas with assistance is making valuable contacts with potential investors, business partners, venture capitalists and clients.

Julie joins the programme after achieving a first degree in Finance, a Masters degree in Real Estate and Construction Management, and an MBA.

During her studies she interned at the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, established by Nobel Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus. The Bank offers a radical new approach to providing credit to millions of Bangladesh's poor, offering them a route out of poverty through providing funding for them to start their own businesses.

Before attending the Technology Entrepreneurship programme, Julie also spent time working with Unreasonable - a social enterprise which aims to enable entrepreneurs to scale their impact and contribute to tackling the greatest challenges facing the world.

She was part of the team which delivered Unreasonable@Sea, which saw 11 technology companies and over twenty mentors sail around the world, stopping in 13 countries to work with local entrepreneurs to scale up their initiatives to change lives.

"Through my experiences I have developed a particular interest in the power of microfinance to offer entrepreneurs in developing countries a route to radically improve their lives," says Julie, who has recently started the coursework for the programme. "I'm looking forward to using the programme to reflect on entrepreneurship as well as have the opportunity to take a technology business to market."

"The entrepreneurship scene in London is really exciting right now and UCL is right in the thick of it," she added. "For me, UCL and the MSc of Technology Entrepreneurship programme is ideal, not only because of its foundation in technology, but because of the university's focus on social enterprise and global citizenship."

Michael Scott-Kline, Director of the Fulbright Awards Programme at the Fulbright Commission, said when it was first announced that the Fulbright-UCL Technology Entrepreneurship Award is one of the most exciting additions to the Fulbright Programme for many years.

"For Fulbright, it's truly one of a kind. By fostering entrepreneurial spirit and business zeal amongst bright, enthusiastic postgraduates the Award offers an unparalleled opportunity for an American student to develop their ideas and skills, at a world-class institution right in the heart of London, and emerge as a leader of new enterprise", he said.

Dr Dave Chapman, Programme Director of the MSc Technology Entrepreneurship programme, was also pleased to welcome Julie to the UCL community: "Julie is exactly the calibre of student we were hoping to attract to UCL through partnering with the Fulbright Commission - smart, forward-thinking and with sharp business sense."

Links:

US-UK Fulbright Commission
UCL MSc Technology Entrepreneurship