Over the past three years, the Young Professionals Society has worked tirelessly to bring key leadership principles to youngsters via a range of activities including workshops, clubs, courses, and lectures from world renowned professionals.
These have included scientists, lawyers, politicians, doctors, academics, entrepreneurs and other business leaders. Youngsters have had access to knowledge through Q & A sessions, group and one-to-one mentoring and coaching sessions. The main goal of the activities was to build leadership knowledge and experience within young people, since it is this demographic that will go on to shape society and the environment in which humans live in the future.
The training went beyond academic knowledge and branched out to the level of high-quality experiential and immersive activities, so that the principles are embedded in each participant to make their newfound knowledge and experience applicable to real life situations.
The activities employed principles of 100 per cent participation and engagement and used accelerated learning technology to embed knowledge and experience with individuals and their personalities, so that core principles become habits that enable excellence to be achieved.
YPS has strived to recognise excellence and the achievements of young people through its major Young Leaders Award. The inaugural award in 2020 went to Dr Yarjan Samad from the Cambridge Graphene Centre at the University of Cambridge, for his work on graphene-based materials for space applications.
In 2021, the award went to Lady Zahra Niazi from Bradford City Council who has demonstrated leadership and championed diversity and equality among all the people of Bradford and beyond. This year’s 2022 award went to Dr Tanveer Tabish from the University of Oxford who has made scientific breakthroughs and significant contributions to the development of anti-cancer nanomedicines and is currently working on projects to support the British Heart Foundation in providing solutions to overcome the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.
These three award recipients will be attending and speaking at the YPS Leaders Conference 2022 to be held on August 6, in Manchester. The conference will host many world-renowned speakers and leaders in different fields and will also hold a special expert panel session titled: “Quo Vadimos on Leadership in a Volatile World for Young Professionals”.
In recognition for their contributions to ‘Youth Leadership Development’, Professor Waqar Ahmed of the University of Lincoln and president of YPS, and Dr Nasar Ali, the founding chair of the organisation, were presented with 2022 awards. The awards were presented respectively by Nazir Afzal OBE, the new chancellor of the University of Manchester; and Lord Wajid Khan, Baron Khan of Burnley, Lord Mayor of Burnley and former Member of the European Parliament.
Speaking at the presentations, Dr Ali dedicated these awards to the energetic efforts of professionals who have generously contributed their time and effort for the benefits of youngsters. They provide the impetus to intensify and diversify into activities that will benefit the UK’s future leaders and their efforts to make the world a better place for everyone on the planet.
The awards ceremony took place at the Old Trafford Cricket Stadium on May 21, 2022, and was attended by 800 people consisting of professionals, leaders, businesspeople, and artists. The mega event was hosted by DM Group and chaired by Dr Liaqat Malik.
Dr Nasar Ali and Professor Waqar Ahmed recently joined us on The Leaders Council Podcast to outline the aims and purpose of YPS, and to introduce the upcoming August conference in Manchester. Listen to the full interview below.
Image by The Climate Reality Project on Unsplash
