University of Birmingham Dubai welcomes EXPO2020 intern

The University of Birmingham Dubai welcomes its first-ever EXPO2020 intern following a unique competition that attracted entries from hundreds of students across its UK campus.

Second-year Business Management undergraduate Beatrice Gironi secured the social media marketing internship after an application process that saw her selected from over 200 applicants.

Beatrice, from Milan, in Italy, will spend three weeks at EXPO2020 in Dubai – visiting a number of different pavilions to create content for the University of Birmingham Dubai marketing team to post on its social media channels.

She arrives in time for EXPO2020’s Travel and Connectivity theme week and will create digital content around connections between the campuses in Birmingham and Dubai, as well as the skills needed to work in a global marketplace. She will also create a video diary of her experience.

Beatrice commented: “It is a dream come true to go to Dubai and I’m really looking forward to working at EXPO2020 and learning more about Dubai culture. I’m really excited about this opportunity to work with the University team and learn more about digital marketing.

“Studying at the University of Birmingham is a great experience – they offered a great course that was not available to me in Italy and an opportunity to improve my English. The chance to win an internship in Dubai through this competition was an excellent bonus!”

Beatrice’s internship is funded by the OfS/Research England Student Knowledge Exchange Project, which supports students at the Universities of Birmingham and Keele into internships, consultancies, enterprise challenges, bootcamps and to start their own business.

The University of Birmingham’s Careers Network team worked with colleagues in Dubai to create the competition - shortlisting 30 students, including Beatrice. Participants then attended a social media workshop and had an hour to create a short video for social media promoting attendance at EXPO2020.

Beatrice’s video was selected along with three others by the judging panel and the finalists attended an in-person interview with Careers Network staff, after which she was selected for the Dubai internship.

University of Birmingham Dubai Provost Professor David Sadler commented: “I’m delighted to welcome Beatrice to the University of Birmingham Dubai and hope that working with our marketing team creates an exciting and rewarding opportunity for her.

“Everything we do is designed to broaden the range of exceptional opportunities for students in Dubai. We’re keen to share such experiences with students from Birmingham, particularly as we begin operating in our brand-new, bespoke campus building - a new academic home that will deliver an educational experience like no other in Dubai.”

The University of Birmingham Dubai offers foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes across a range of areas.

As the first global top 100 and elite UK Russell Group university to establish a campus in Dubai, the University of Birmingham Dubai delivers the highest-quality education underpinned by a growing research focus in a leading global educational hub.

Designed to reflect real-world working practices, the University of Birmingham Dubai’s new campus opens this month and encourages students to carry out research in interdisciplinary teams across all academic subjects. Flexible study spaces ensure students have a learning environment suited to their needs, whether in large lecture theatres and laboratories or smaller seminar and tutorial rooms.

With architecture inspired by the historic Aston Webb buildings at the centre of the Birmingham campus, the Dubai facilities use shaded open-air courtyard spaces to create an enjoyable and productive student experience. The buildings sit next to parkland offering sports pitches and an open-air event space, whilst new student accommodation is a short walk away, across the parkland.

• For more information, please contact Tony Moran, International Communications Manager on +44 (0)782 783 2312. For out-of-hours enquiries, please call +44 (0) 7789 921 165.
• The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions. It was established by Queen Victoria in 1900 as Great Britain’s first civic university, where students from all religions and backgrounds were accepted on an equal basis.
• The University is renowned for its research excellence and its researchers have received 10 Nobel Prizes. From pioneering organ transplants, discovering gravitational waves and furthering understanding of Shakespeare, to developing cures for cancer, advances in robotics and revealing the structure of DNA, the University has been at the forefront of some of the most ground-breaking discoveries of the last 100 years.