Two global leaders in the making

Two second-year engineering students are well on their way to becoming global leaders in their fields.

Zimbabwean-born Mapambapashi Dube and Nabeel Hussain were two out of six students chosen from around South Africa to receive the Goldman Sachs Global Leader Award recently. To be eligible for this prestigious award, candidates are required to have received firsts in all their first-year subjects at university and to have held several leadership positions in high school.

Dube was a prefect and sports captain at Marondera High School in Harare, and at UCT he was a tutor on the computing for electrical engineers course. He is currently a volunteer tutor and librarian in his residence. And, as stipulated, he achieved straight As in all his electrical engineering courses last year.

Hussain was president of the toastmasters' society, a prefect and a house captain at St Johns College in Zimbabwe, and captain of his indoor soccer team in his first year at UCT. He also received firsts in all his chemical engineering courses last year.

"After receiving the award I started to see myself not just as a student anymore, but as someone who can make changes," Dube said. "The goals which I used to think were too far to ever reach, the ideas that I thought would surely fail, are now in reach and could be successful."

Hussain was equally pleased by the award.

"I was wondering why I was really driving myself so much in my first year, and then when I won the award I realised why," he said. "I don't want to get ahead of myself with winning this. It is a stepping stone. I still have along way to go."

The Institute of International Education (IIE), in partnership with educational organisations in selected countries, conducts an annual competition at over 70 top-ranked universities in 19 countries. The competition identifies and rewards the academic excellence and leadership potential of 100 of the most accomplished second-year students from all disciplines for the Goldman Sachs Global Leaders Programme, each winner receiving US$3 000.