The British Council's Alumni Awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of alumni and showcase the impact and value of a higher education in the UK.

Here are the stories of the British Council's UK Alumni awardees 2023 in Bangladesh.

We start with a little boy who did not have very good grades in school. Today, that boy is a man with a degree from the UK and lots of awards for his extraordinary achievements in the film industry.

Ariq Anam Khan is a versatile writer, director, and producer from Bangladesh. He completed his MA in Filmmaking at the London Film School, University of Warwick. From his childhood, Ariq knew his destiny was to be behind the camera, directing people, writing stories, and putting his country on the map globally. During his studies in the UK, he immersed himself in the world of cinema and learned the finer details on how to produce a film. Today, he has his own company, Forecast Films, and is building a space to learn, explore, and create.

In 2020, Ariq's award-winning short film Transit travelled the world and premiered at festivals such as Busan, Clermont-Ferrand, LA Shorts, and so on. In 2022, he was selected as a fellow at the prestigious Global Media Makers (GMM) program in Los Angeles for his first feature project titled The Fallen Star. Ariq won "The Culture and Creativity" award at the UK Alumni Awards 2023 and will use the award money to travel and explore ideas for writing a story.

Moving on from the world of entertainment to a mandate of 118 pages that can literally change a nation. Md. Samiul Masud is a business graduate and the obvious career choice for him was to work for a well-established company. But his parents and mentors identified his potential to contribute to something greater than that.

Today, Samiul is a specialist in the public financial sector having graduated from the University of Birmingham with a Master of Public Administration (Finance). He served as a Senior Consultant in public finance reform in Bangladesh for the Ministry of Finance and the World Bank. During his two years of specialist service, he authored the very first 'Strategic Capacity Development Plan' in PFM for Bangladesh. Here, Samiul identified the best way to spend the country's limited resources and gain maximised output from it. The most prominent ministries welcomed his strategy and are working together more efficiently than ever before.

Samiul also pioneered networking with overseas capacity development partners by building relationships with Civil Service College, UK. He won the "Business and Innovation" award at the UK Alumni Awards and with the award money, he plans on learning more about formation, reformation, and analysing a policy. He also has a dream to create a space for women that they can take forward and which can lead to creating an equal society.

Our next story happens in the corridor of a university in Bangladesh where a few students approached their professor to guide them for a project. Today, the professor and those students have developed that project into an application where a doctor can see and compare a patient's entire medical history on their fingertips, to ensure the most effective analysis of the patient's condition.

Professor Kazi Hassan Robin is an academician, researcher, and author. Robin holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology from the University of East London and has been recognised with many accolades, including the "Youth Excellence Award" at the Youth Leadership Carnival 2019. Currently Robin and his team is developing a tool to identify ADHD in children at home which will ensure early detection and medication.

Robin was the winner of the "Social Action Award" at the UK Alumni Awards 2023. He is looking forward to using the award money to further develop the tool.

Finally, let's take introduce you to a person who works with energy. Dr Sakib Amin, an Associate Professor of Economics at North South University (NSU), earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Durham University and his Master's degree in International Economics from the University of Essex. Dr Amin, through his research, focuses on electricity price reform and an energy policy which will not only secure energy for the future but will pave the way to be self-sustainable in producing natural energy.

Dr Amin was the recipient of the "Commonwealth Rutherford Fellowship (2017-18)" and has recently been appointed as the Assistant General Secretary of the Bangladesh Energy Society. He won the "Science and Sustainability Award" at the UK Alumni Awards and will use the award money to learn more from his mentors in the UK on how to reform the electricity price in a more equitable way.

All of the Bangladeshi alumni award winners have shown that with a UK education and the desire to excel, one can reach for the stars and beyond.

The writer is the English Programmes Manager at British Council Bangladesh