As part of the vast number of opportunities on the graduate development programme, a number of Thales UK business graduates have successfully reached the finals of the Association for Project Management (APM) Project Challenge. The competition is for teams of students, graduates or new project managers and three teams from Thales UK are competing in different APM Project Challenges across the UK; Glasgow, London and Crawley.

Glasgow

Five graduates from our Glasgow office competed in the Scottish APM Project Challenge under the theme of ‘Innovation Whilst Fundraising’. The team held an online auction in which they obtained their own donations from various companies and designed and created their own website.  A variety of donations were sourced including a signed Manchester United football shirt and a hotel stay courtesy of the Jury’s Inn.  Alongside this, the team have been participating in other fundraising activities to help support their APM Challenge entry. To date, they have raised a total of £2,294.30.

The team attended the finals night in Aberdeen at the end of March and after presenting their project, achieved a commendable second place.

Crawley

A team of six graduates from our Crawley office are delivering workshops to current undergraduates in the South East, about cyber & information security and how to stay safe on social media in the modern workplace (specifically when working in organisations which handle sensitive data).  The workshops are intended to educate undergraduates on these issues so that they are prepared to join the world of work and will help them become more employable as a result. This is also an opportunity to give undergraduates an insight into working in an environment where the correct handling of sensitive data is of vital importance, something in which Thales is particularly experienced.  The APM team have already attended a few successful workshops at local universities and will attend the APM finals in due course to present to a panel of expert judges.

 

London

A team of six graduates from London have been creating an internal magazine for graduates called “Grad2Grad Magazine”.  The theme of the APM challenge in London is ‘Communication’.

 

The team aimed to create a more integrated graduate community within Thales by producing a high gloss, hard copy magazine specifically aimed at graduates in the business. They created the first edition, after following a fully detailed and strict review and approval process, and the first edition was then circulated to all graduates. This first edition is informative, atheistically pleasing and falls within Thales UK branded guidelines, so will hopefully continue to run and help inform current graduates all about what is going on across the business.

The Grad2Grad magazine will not only be available for the APM Challenge itself, but the team also aim to make this an on-going source of communication for all graduates. Which means it should be available for all incoming graduates in the future also. So keep an eye out for your copy when you join the business in September!