And the winner is…
Every day last week, we announced the shortlisted nominations in the FutureLearn Inspiration Awards. Today, we can finally reveal the winners. Drum roll, please…
Inspiration at Work
Although this category highlighted many supportive colleagues and managers around the world, our expert judges chose Helen – a doctor in Gambia – as the winner. This was because she’s not only an inspiration to her colleagues – including Nyima who nominated her – but also to the hundreds of patients in her care.
Inspiration in Education
This category was one of the toughest to judge, but our panel ultimately choose Mustafa – a student team president in Egypt – as the winner, citing the impact he’s had on 22,000 other students’ lives.
The panel also commended Naveen – a teacher in rural India – for the efforts he’s made to bring technology into his classroom and connect his students with the outside world.
Inspiration at Home
There were many extraordinary stories of supportive fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers in this category, and Fouzia – a mother from Pakistan – was chosen by our judges as the winner. Her commitment to educating her daughters “against all odds” really stood out.
Inspiration on FutureLearn
We were delighted to hear so many examples of learners from around the world helping and motivating each other on FutureLearn in this category.
But our judges picked Simon from the UK as the winner, thanks to the impact he’s had on so many other learners, through the digital marketing and web science support groups he’s set up.
The overall winner
After much deliberation, our judges picked Mustafa (pictured left with Ali who nominated him) as the overall winner and our learning hero of 2015.
The number of lives he’s touched, coupled with the selfless approach he took during a tumultuous time in Egypt, made him an obvious choice. And this choice was backed up by the many comments we received supporting Mustafa, after we announced he was on the shortlist.
Thank you to everyone who nominated their learning hero. We wish we could have featured more of your amazing stories in the shortlist, but we hope you’ve enjoyed reading – and found inspiration in – our 25-strong shortlist and four winners.
