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2010-2011: ZAZA NADJA LEE HANSEN
We are all only too familiar with the concepts of outsourcing and offshoring as jobs move from West to East. But what has been studied less is the impact this has on the very process of project management and engineering. Zaza puts this question: "what are the implications for management and engineering of having a product designed in India and manufactured in China, while the owner is a company headquartered in Copenhagen?"
Her background is a Master's degree from DTU. She completed a Masters project in collaboration with Microsoft Business Solutions entitled "Possibilities to improve outsourcing to India", for which she received the highest possible grade. She then moved on to a PhD. To complete this she will be spending time at Cambridge. Cambridge offers her access to a wealth of practical research data from within multinational networks which ideally complements the more theoretical background from DTU.
2010-2011: ANNE METTE LANGKJER
Anne Mette is a 27 year old artist whom we will help to support in the second year of her MA at the Royal College of Art --- the UK's only purely graduate art school with a reputation that attracts students from all over the world.
She took her first degree at the Dansk Designskole where she specialised in textile design. During her time there she was involved in a project based in Morocco and sponsored by Kvinfo, Danida and Planet Finance, bringing together the technical expertise of Denmark and the age old qualities in arts and crafts practised by Moroccan women.
In addition to more conventional work her recent projects have looked at how textile design can work together with light and space to create not just new sensations but open the door to new functions.
But whatever the project her work is informed by a sense of originality and elegance. Her current supervisor describes her as "an outstanding student amongst a very talented year group".
2010-2011: HENRIK TAEKKER MADSEN
Henrik is headed from Esbjerg, where he has taken his bachelors degree to Glasgow where he will be taking an MSc in Chemical Engineering. His project involves tackling one of the unhappy consequences of our consumer society: how best to deal with waste. Specifically he is working on the development of novel chemical treatments for the leachate produced by landfills. Reducing or eliminating the need to transport leachate would have significant cost benefits, but Henrik also argues that it could have a broader impact, accelerating a paradigm shift in how we deal with waste.
At Strathclyde University in Glasgow he will work under Professor Andrew Mills, leader of a dedicated photocatalytic research team.
One of the ways in which Henrik has demonstrated his commitment to science in society is to have organised the first and only "Chemistry Shows" in Esbjerg. These are performed 5 to 6 times a year in both primary and secondary schools as well as at "relevant natural science occasions".
2010-2011: JACOB NIELSEN
Jacob has a few more years under his belt than our previous candidate. He took his first degree at Aarhus University involving Japanese studies --- which he then went on to deepen in Japan itself with a "Master of Science in Asia Pacific Studies" degree (at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University).
As relevant for his project today is that he built on his early concern with welfare provision (already expressed through voluntary work in care homes in Denmark) by involving himself in a non-profit organisation in Japan supporting people with serious mental and physical disabilities.
He has spent the current academic year converting to Social Anthropology with a Masters degree at Oxford. Now his project, also at Oxford as a DPhil student, is to examine the involvement of NPOs (Not for Profit Organisations) in welfare provision in Japan and relate it to what lessons can be applied back in Denmark and the UK. There is a lack of serious examiniation of how best NPOs can complement state run entities and he believes that applying the disciplines of anthropological methodology will help to find innovative solutions.
2010-11: JON RAHBEK-CLEMMENSEN
Committing a nation's troops to war in today's post cold war environment has implications which go beyond the purely military. Continued domestic support is required. As Jon puts it with sadness "wars are not going to go away" and increasingly involvement will be in "long and complex missions abroad".
The subject of his MPhil/PhD thesis is developing understanding of "how this constant engagement affects Western democracy and how war can be conducted in a manner that effectively diminishes the threats to democracy without eroding the very democracy they aim to protect". He has chosen LSE as being the University with the best International Relations department in Europe --- as well as being concerned with the philosophical and societal implications of war, unlike other universities both here and in the US.
Jon's academic ability is outstanding. A US professor who knew him as an exchange student while he was at Copenhagen University says of him: "In my decade of graduate teaching I can honestly say that I have only encountered one other student (at Harvard) who I think has the innate intelligence, skills to match him". The head of the Danish Institute for Military Studies where Jon has been these last 18 months echoes this judgment.
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