Jacqueline, a Kuiper-Overpelt Scholarship recipient, explained how she had recently developed an NGO called ZIMBO: Zimbabwean Bicycles and Outreach. ZIMBO’s goal is to improve the living standards of the most vulnerable people in rural Zimbabwe by supplying them with bicycles from the Netherlands and also by building community centres and funding outreach there.

Taking inspiration from the city
'I love that Amsterdam is such a cosmopolitan city and yet you can really feel the history as you walk through the streets here,” said Adel Magra, a Master’s student in Mathematics and recipient of an Amsterdam Science Talent Scholarship. “I also very much enjoy working on the Science Park and how the concentration of education and research facilities there allows for easy intellectual exchange between the disciplines.'

Ana Gabriela Rojo, an Amsterdam Excellence Scholarship recipient and Master’s student in Conflict Resolution and Governance, said she liked the way that the UvA encourages critical and interdisciplinary thinking, but also that there seemed to be a moral commitment as well as an intellectual commitment to the way the university approaches its work.

The future of the UvA
In a speech at the ceremony, UvA rector Karen Maex welcomed the new scholarship students and spoke about how they represented the future not just for the UvA but also for society as a whole. The rector advised the scholarship recipients that, in addition to focusing on their studies, they should embrace the full experience of a university education, by meeting new people, seeking out new experiences and exploring some of the many associations and activities the UvA has to offer.

Scholarships
The University of Amsterdam aims to attract the world’s brightest students to its international classrooms. For that reason, it has established several scholarship programmes specifically designed to offer talented and motivated international students the opportunity to pursue a degree at the UvA. The students attending this special event included recipients of the Amsterdam Excellence Scholarship, the Amsterdam Merit Scholarship, the Amsterdam Science Talent Scholarship, the Orange Tulip Scholarship, the Julia Henriette Jaarsma-Adolf Scholarship, the Kuiper-Overpelt Scholarship and the Holland Scholarship.