admin, Author at Millennium Point

We’re delighted to share that Shirley Golf Club has donated a golf buggy to assist patients attending the mass vaccination centre at Millennium Point.

Our landmark venue opened its doors on Monday 11th January as the first NHS mass vaccination site in Birmingham. The centre is run by the NHS in Birmingham and Solihull as part of the regions Covid-19 vaccination programme, the largest vaccination programme ever, and plays a vital role in protecting lives, and in supporting the recovery of our region.

The golf buggy has been donated to assist the elderly and more vulnerable patients attending vaccinations. At the time of writing only those aged 64 and over, people that are “moderate to high risk” and key workers are eligible for the vaccine. The buggy has been a big hit with attendees, with Shirley Golf Club reporting many of their own members spotting it on their visit. We’re really grateful for the donation and the impact it has made for the more vulnerable – and the fun they get riding it!

Shirley Golf Club is a popular golfing destination in the West Midlands. The club is situated within Blythe Valley on the outskirts of South Birmingham and offers golfers a luscious open space bordered by fields and natural woodlands. Though they have been closed throughout the pandemic, they are now taking bookings for 2021. For further information please visit their website.

Is Millennium Point Accessible?
Millennium Point has several entrances, all of which are accessible for wheelchairs and those with walking aids. All zones within the building where vaccinations are taking place have access to lifts and escalators for those who need them. Staff and volunteers, including St John’s Ambulance, are positioned at all entrances to the building who assist vulnerable visitors or provide wheelchairs to those who need them. Additionally, Birmingham City Council has gifted free use of the multi-storey car park based on Cardigan street, to enable NHS patients attending their vaccination appointments to park completely free of charge. There are disabled parking bays located on the ground floor of the multi-story car park available for use. It is then approximately 80 meters (262 ft) from the car park to the vaccination centre within Millennium Point, which is the equivalent of a 2-minute walk.

For more information on NHS mass vaccination centre at Millennium Point, please visit our dedicated page.

Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands. Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint.

The deadline to apply for our life-changing scholarship at Birmingham City University ends on Sunday.

We’ve partnered with Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment, to fully fund tuition fees in one of 20 different courses across computing, digital technology, engineering and the built environment. Now in its seventh year, the Millennium Point Trust Scholarship has already funded six young people from the region through their degrees at Birmingham City University – which originally started as the Young Innovator Prize in 2015.

How do you apply?
The competition is open to applicants aged 17 and over within the West Midlands Combined Authority, who are looking to start a qualifying degree in September 2021.

To apply, they need to download and complete this quick and easy application form from our website by answering four questions.

They will then submit their completed form to [email protected] by Sunday 28th February 2021. We will invite five applicants to a final assessment day in April 2021 before deciding a winner.

Who can apply?
Applications are only being accepted from students living in the West Midlands Combined Authority, who cannot already have or currently be studying an undergraduate degree. The scholarship only applies to a qualifying course at Birmingham City University. For further information, check out the rules section.

Why should you apply?
All finalists will benefit from the programme with opportunities that can kick start their career in science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM). One person will get a fully funded degree – which means they won’t pay their undergraduate tuition fees which are upward f £27,000.

All finalists receive skills development and training to build their confidence before the live final. Following the competition, they can become an alumnus of the programme and benefit from a range of opportunities such as mentoring, work placements and networking.

Why do we do this?
Birmingham and the West Midlands is teeming with unfettered STEM talent. Now, more than ever, young people need our support and encouragement for them to unlock their potential. The scholarship is one of several ways we, as a charitable trust, support the growth of STEM industries in the region and do our bit to secure the future and economic growth of an area and a community that has been designated the largest hub for science and innovation outside of London. For more information on how you can get involved please visit this page.

Get started
If you or someone you know is interested, head over to millenniumpoint.org.uk/scholarship and start the application. Deadline for applications is Sunday 28th February 2021.

Every year, the Millennium Point Charitable Trust Small Grants programme gives out grants of up to £20,000 to support science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education projects in the West Midlands. Here is the story of Aston Villa Foundation who received funding from Millennium Point in 2020.

Who’s running the project?
The Aston Villa Foundation is a registered charity that delivers the community and social responsibility work of Aston Villa Football Club. With a mission of ‘Working Together to Enrich Lives’, the foundation and its partners work with people from a variety of backgrounds in Birmingham as well as supporting the wider ‘Aston Villa family’ through schools, football in the community, disability, health and wellbeing, education, interventions and community relations.

What’s it all about?
STEM Stars will see the development of a new STEM programme in six schools, all within the targeted constituencies of Erdington, Perry Barr and Ladywood (approximately a three-mile radius of Villa Park). The funding will be used to purchase a Sphero robot package (which includes 15 x robots, 10 x tablets and 6 x small pitches) that uses football to engage young people in coding. The money will also pay for training and some of the staff delivery.

Using code, the robots can perform speciﬁc functions – such as motion and direction, colour and light, and sensor-controlled reactions, allowing students to be creative with their programs. Teachers and students can use the robots for STEM learning through activities such as navigating a maze, painting, mimicking the Solar System or swimming across water. The Aston Villa Foundation staff will create football-related tasks and work with the schoolchildren to programme the robots to recreate Villa goals from the current Premier League season.

STEM Stars is an extension of the PL Primary Stars education programme which is already delivered by the Aston Villa Foundation to schools in Perry Barr, Erdington and Ladywood. However, none of the schools currently engage in STEM activities. The schools targeted in the STEM Stars project have a high percentage of BAME and high levels of income deprivation (top 3% nationally) and education deprivation (top 8%).

Who will benefit?
The funding will help deliver 60 free days of activities at six primary schools across a school term (10 x 1 day blocks). The focus years for the sessions will be Years 4, 5 and 6, benefitting around 400 pupils in total. Exact numbers still to be determined and are COVID-19 dependent.

What they said:
Paul Hughes, Aston Villa Foundation Schools Manager, commented: “The funding will allow us to be innovative with our provision in schools and make a difference within the local community by equipping the next generations with potential skill sets of the future and looking positively ahead in an ever-evolving technological world.

“It will provide us with a further opportunity to have a positive impact on children and schools, by enriching their curriculums through this unique programme to experience, learn and develop through STEM, with the power of football and the club as a key instigator to unlocking learning potential.”

When’s it all happening?
It is hoped the project will then be rolled out to the six schools over three academic terms from January 2021.

About educational grant funding from Millennium Point
Educators, Charities and Not-for-Profits within the West Midlands Combined Authority can apply for up to £20,000 from Millennium Point to fund their STEM activity. For more information on how to access this funding please visit www.millenniumpoint.org.uk/grants

Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint. Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands.

Our landmark venue now enters it’s second month as an NHS mass vaccination centre in Birmingham. We are extremely proud of the work we’ve done to support the NHS in delivering the vaccination rollout across the midlands.

Our chief executive officer Abbie Vlahakis and Chamber chief executive Paul Faulkner discussed how our venue became the first Covid-19 mass vaccination centre to operate in the Midlands. You can watch the interview in full by clicking below.

For information about receiving vaccinations in Birmingham and Solihull please visit www.birminghamandsolihullcovidvaccine.nhs.uk/ or call 119

At Millennium Point, we are offering a fully paid undergraduate degree for one student to join Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment as we look to boost STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) learning across the West Midlands. The deadline for applications for our fully funded degree ends at midnight on 28th February.

Here, in this blog, we take a look at the story of Shilpa Joy. Shilpa graduated from the same faculty in which we are offering our fully funded undergraduate scholarship – Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment, with a degree in Automotive Engineering course 2016. She went on to work at Jaguar Land Rover as a Prototype Build Engineer.

A day in the life at JLR

Who is Shilpa Joy?

Former Automotive student Shilpa Joy worked diligently while studying but also found time to be involved in extra-curricular activities within the university. She chose to study Automotive Engineering, as there were so few girls on the course and she wanted to prove that girls have nothing to shy away from.

Shilpa didn’t know exactly what career role she wanted but knew she wanted to do something with cars and that she needed to gain experience before pinpointing a specific area in the automotive industry to specialise in.

What did she do with her degree?

After graduation, Shilpa went on to become a Prototype Build Engineer in charge of three build zones at the start of the assembly line at Jaguar Land Rover. This role is a crucial part of vehicle production, directly responsible for innovation and improving build quality by combining new content with existing vehicles to create prototype properties suitable for test and development for new vehicles.

She said: “Any delay in my zones would impact the completion and delivery of that particular vehicle to the customer. I face a variety of challenges on a day to day basis and finding solutions to them aren’t always quick or easy. University taught me to always have a five-year plan. I cannot tell you how important this turned out to be for me. My five-year plan encourages and pushes me to the next step in my career and each time I look at it, it reminds me to stay on track and reassures me why I am doing what I am doing.”

Unlock your future with a fully funded degree
Your journey can start like Shilpa’s at Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment and you won’t have to pay tuition fees. We are offering a fully-funded undergraduate degree – that’s over £27,000 you will never have to pay back – to study one of over 20 courses including automotive engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering and construction management.

The application form is quick, easy and could be the start of a life-changing opportunity. Deadline for applications is 28th February 2021, for further information or to apply please visit www.millenniumpoiint.org.uk/scholarship

The deadline for our life-changing fully funded undergraduate scholarship at Birmingham City University has been extended to 28th February 2021

Each year, the Millennium Point Charitable Trust fully fund an undergraduate degree at Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment, which covers over 20 different courses across computing, digital technology, engineering and the built environment. Now in its seventh year, the Millennium Point Trust Scholarship has already funded six young people from the region through their degrees at Birmingham City University.

Young people in education are among those most impacted over the past 12 months by the pandemic causing uncertainty and anxiety over final grades and their future. This has caused a dramatic increase in young people taking to time to carefully consider their futures. After listening closely to the anxieties of young people and feedback from schools and colleges across the region, we have taken the decision to extend the deadline for applications to our life-changing fully funded scholarship from the end of January to 28th February 2021.

The objective of the Millennium Point Scholarship, and the Millennium Point Charitable Trust, is to give young people the support and encouragement they need to unlock their future in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). The offer of a fully-funded undergraduate degree is more appealing than ever to young people in the region with value for money being a key driver in applying to uni. With the decision to extend the deadline of the scholarship project this year by four weeks, we are hoping to offer respite and reassurance to students by giving them extra time to apply for this unmissable opportunity to have their tuition fees paid for.

The competition is open to applicants aged 17 and over within the West Midlands Combined Authority, who are looking to start a qualifying degree in September 2021. To apply, they need to download and complete our quick and easy application form from our website by answering four questions. They will then submit their completed form to [email protected] by Sunday 28th February 2021. We will invite five applicants to a final assessment day in April 2021 before deciding a winner.

Why apply?
If you win you we’ll pay your tuition fees. If you make it to the shortlist you get a range of benefits and support that develop your core skills and create opportunities to help you kick start your career in science, technology, engineering and maths. You have nothing to lose by applying.

Get started
If you or someone you know is interested, head over to millenniumpoint.org.uk/scholarship to download the application form before midnight on 28th February 2021.

The Millennium Point Charitable Trust has joined the Connect_In campaign to help the hundreds of families who have fallen victim to ‘digital poverty’, by not only donating refurbished laptops but acting as a drop-off and collection point for donations.

What is the Campaign?

Launched by The Child Poverty Action Forum and supported by Wowdot CIC, the Connect_In campaign aims to ensure the most disadvantaged families are receiving the help that they need with homeschooling during the pandemic, in the form of laptops and a stable internet connection.

Abbie Vlahakis, CEO of Millennium Point, commented: “Education and STEM are in the trust’s DNA, so it was clear to us that we had to get involved with the Connect_In campaign.

“It’s essential that every child has access to education and digital provision during the pandemic, to give everyone the same life chances and to prevent the “huge gap” between the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and their peers. We’ll not only be serving as a hub for drop-off and collection of laptops, but we’re committed to donating thousands of laptops to disadvantaged local school children too.”

Ongoing support for STEM in the region

Despite a year rocked by covid-19, the Millennium Point Charitable Trust amassed multi-millions in contributions and donations in 2020 as part of its mission to provide continued support for the region’s STEM sector; this has included funding more than 40 projects in the form of small grants to fund STEM-related projects in the region; working with Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and The Built Environment to offer a free undergraduate degree through the Millennium Point Scholarship, with applications for the seventh year is open now; an annual donation to ThinkTank Science Museum and rent reductions for STEM tenants.

Abbie comments: “This is another example of our continued investment in STEM-related organisations, projects and initiatives that benefit Birmingham and the wider region, which has totalled more than £25m over the past six years.”

Donated laptops can be dropped off at Millennium Point reception on Level 0; to find out more about the campaign, go to https://wow-group.co.uk/wowdot/

IMage caption (left to right): Cas Majid (CEO of WOW Group), Abbie Vlahakis (Millennium Point CEO) and Bevil Williams (Managing Director at Repc Ltd) delivering laptops and equipment to Highfields School in Saltley

Press enquiries please contact Jon Perks or Allyson Loots at CAB Campaign – [email protected] / [email protected]

Here, in this blog, we take a look at the story of Cal Henderson, Chief Technology Officer at Slack. Cal graduated from the same faculty in which we are offering a fully-funded scholarship – Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment, with a degree in software engineering in 2002 (equivalent to a computer science degree today).

Who is Cal Henderson?
Cal was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Birmingham City University in recognition of his contribution to the technology field. After graduating from the University in 2002 with a degree in Software Engineering, Cal jas enjoyed an illustrious career in the tech industry since graduating. In 2006, Cal wrote the best-selling book “Building Scalable Websites” and is currently working on a second edition. In his spare time, he continues to publish articles on web application development and contribute to open source projects. He is colour blind and has worked on applications to make the web more accessible for people with the condition.

He co-founded software company Slack in 2013, with three colleagues with their creation going on to be a major hit with users. Slack is a collaboration hub for teams at work, which brings together the people you need, the information you share, and the tools you use. Boasting more than 10 million users, the company recently made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange earning an estimated valuation of over $17 billion.

Cal was named as Birmingham City University’s Alumni of the Year in 2016 in recognition of his achievements and is now recognised with the University’s highest honorary accolade. On receiving the accolade, Henderson commented: “When I was a kid and thought I could one day work at Microsoft – it never occurred to me that I could build a company that might become the next Microsoft. Silicon Valley is a long way from Birmingham, and a university education opens up a world of possibilities.”

“I now lead a team of almost 100 engineers building a variety of applications and distributed systems that a million people rely on every day. While I spend most of my time these days in meetings rather than a text editor, the engineering knowledge and understanding that I gained at university is crucial for running an engineering organisation.”

Unlock your future with a fully funded degree
Your journey can start like Cal’s at Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment and you won’t have to pay tuition fees. We are offering a fully-funded undergraduate degree – that’s over £27,000 you will never have to pay back – to study one of over 20 courses including computer science, video games design, computer forensics and cybersecurity.

Our Chief Executive talked about the importance of our fully-funded university scholarship in an interview with Nikki Tapper on her evening show on BBC Radio WM last Sunday.

The Millennium Point Scholarship offers a fully funded undergraduate degree to one young person each year in the West Midlands at Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment. Applications are open for 2021 and close on midnight 31st January 2021. To start your application or find out more information please visit millenniumpoint.org.uk/scholarship.

Talking STEM on BBC WM
CEO of Millennium Point Abbie Vlahakis featured on Nikki Tapper’s Sunday evening show on BBC Radio WM on Sunday 24th January 2021. The host interviewed Abbie on the importance of STEM as well as the life-changing fully funded scholarship that Millennium Point is offering to students in the West Midlands. You can listen back to the interview by following this link and skipping to 01:23:00.

Speaking to the host, Abbie discussed how the Millennium Point Charitable Trust is working with schools to break down the stigma of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers through the scholarship by funding a range of STEM-related degrees including video game design, film production, digital technology, cybersecurity among more traditional STEM subjects such as construction and engineering.

Abbie comments: “Children don’t realise the opportunities that are out there […] STEM subjects are not necessarily white lab coats […] they’re problem-solving careers, they’re creative careers. Don’t think of STEM as something that is feared.”

Other topics discussed included the importance of diversity in STEM, briefly mentioning world-famous mathematician Katherine Johnson whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and the subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights; and the need to encourage more people of colour into STEM subjects. Past winners and finalists of the scholarship, now in its seventh year, have included a range of students from diverse ethnic, social and economic backgrounds from across the region looking to pursue a spectrum of subjects from civil engineering the music technology.

Deadline for 2021 applications
The application is quick and easy with a simple application form which can be downloaded from our website and submitted to [email protected] before midnight on 31st January 2021. A shortlist of finalists will then be chosen to take part in an assessment day in early March.

Sagal, who won the scholarship in 2017, comments about her experience of winning the life-changing scholarship: “Winning the scholarship has given me the confidence to yes to every opportunity and as a result, I am working in a field that I am passionate about. I would definitely advise you to apply for the scholarship if you’re thinking of studying a STEM degree at BCU!”

Sagal graduated with first-class honours in Civil Engineering last year and now works full time for esteemed international engineering company Jacobs.

Photo caption: L/R – Hanifah Shah (BCU), Abbie Vlahakis (Millennium Point) Shennice Talburt (Scholarship winner 2020) Professor Nick Morton (BCU)

For further information on the fully-funded scholarship or to start your application please visit www.millenniumpoint.org.uk/scholarship

The deadline for our life-changing fully funded undergraduate scholarship at Birmingham City University is midnight on 31st January 2021.

The competition is open to applicants aged 17 and over within the West Midlands Combined Authority, who are looking to start a qualifying degree in September 2021. To apply, they need to download and complete our quick and easy application form from our website by answering four questions. They will then submit their completed form to [email protected] by Sunday 31st January 2021. We will invite five applicants to a final assessment day in March 2021 before deciding a winner.

Get started
If you or someone you know is interested, head over tomillenniumpoint.org.uk/scholarship to download the application form before 31st January 2021.