July 31, 2013, by brzcpr

Oluwatosin Afolabi wins the Leadership prize, supported by Barclays

First year Computer Science student, Oluwatosin Afolabi, is the joint winner (with Mathew Liasis) of the Leadership prize, supported by Barclays. This year Barclays was on the lookout for students who demonstrated outstanding leadership skills, a quality that Barclays focus heavily on in order to develop graduates to become the future leaders of tomorrow.

At the event, Karen Oakley-Carpenter from Barclays presented Oluwatosin with his certificate. The prize is a place on one of Barclays’ internship programmes and an iPad2.

In addition to his academic studies,  Oluwatosin has successfully completed two modules of the Nottingham Advantage Award choosing to undertake: The IT Consultancy Project and The Student Venture Challenge.

Here’s what Oluwatosin had to say about winning the Leadership prize:

I applied for the Barclays leadership prize because I was the team leader for both of my Nottingham Advantage Award modules so it felt like a natural choice but the main attraction was the spot on the Barclays Future Leaders Development Program for the prizewinner. That opportunity would undoubtedly take my leadership skills to the next level and help me deliver even better projects as well as gain valuable work experience.

I brought to the competition my passion for the modules I undertook. It motivates me to produce work that is over and above expectation and gain the absolute most from the program.

The experience has been very useful as it has allowed me to develop myself as an individual as well as my employability skills. For example, I do computer science one of the most coursework intensive courses and so I had to develop effective time management skills in order to fulfill my deadlines and deliver my projects to a high standard.

In the future I hope to eventually run my own tech start up. Winning this prize has given me the opportunity to work at a large and established business and understand how businesses are run, the dynamics in place and a better understanding of how finance works.

I think the Nottingham Advantage Award is a great opportunity and the prizes complement it by giving you that extra motivation to make the best of whatever module you undertake.

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