The Beyond UTS International Leadership Development (BUiLD) program is an extra curricular leadership program that was established in April 2010.
BUiLD engages students from all academic disciplines with the opportunity to develop, connect and engage with fundamental issues of our time in a leadership capacity. Fundamentally, BUiLD seeks to promote concepts of social justice, equality, sustainability and the power to make positive change.
BUiLD is designed to develop the global skills of UTS students and increase the number of short term international learning opportunities. Since its establishment more than 1000 students have taken part in the BUiLD program. BUiLD develops the leadership and networking skills of students as well as their global and intercultural capabilities. This mostly takes the form of a series of lectures, workshops and mentoring with experts from a range of industries, fields of interest and social outlets.
BUiLD supplements the UTS In-Country Studies Program and Global Exchange Program by providing an extensive menu of short-term offshore experiential opportunities, covering summer schools, volunteering and community projects, internships, experiential learning, and other tailored mobility programs. In its first year BUiLD provided 123 offshore opportunities for UTS students to travel overseas, including some unique opportunities for our students to join a custom-designed micro-finance study tour in India, a shadowing program with Bollywood directors in India and to work as volunteers in orphanages in India and Africa.
UTS has also hosted more than 100 BUiLD events, including presentations by high profile speakers, networking sessions and seminars, conferences and international relations activities. Some of the highlights include:
- Hugh Evans, founder of The Oaktree Foundation and The Global Poverty Project
- Geraldine Cox, founder of the Sunrise Children’s Villages in Cambodia
- Anuradha Koirala, 2010 CNN Hero of the Year and former Nepalese Minister for Women
- Hansal Metha, Bollywood film-maker
- Somaly Mam, human rights activist and author
- David Batstone, founder of Not For Sale
- Interchange Program – helping students find their inner entrepreneur and develop professional skills (networking, communication, innovation and leadership)
- Future Leaders Lab facilitated by Carli Leimbach, Steve Pozel, Manuela Kim and Ele Jansen
- Empathy workshops
- Drishtee Immersion program in rural India developed exclusively for UTS students
- Workshop on crowdfunding with Pozible
- Exploration of Entrepreneurship with Fishburners
More information on the program is available on the BUiLD website.