December Newsletter
Dear Friends of U-GO,
It’s been possibly the busiest year of my life as U-GO continues to grow our impact globally. We appreciate your generous and continued support of our work, and hope that you’ll enjoy this short update.
TOP 5 Key Accomplishments of 2024:
During the year, we invited 1,840 more ambitious and promising young women into the U-GO family. This increased the total number of U-GO scholars to an incredible 4,340. This is like lining up 31 Airbus A320’s and filling every single seat 😊. We are now working in 9 countries, having started our program in Nepal and Tanzania over the last year, and are looking at Sri Lanka as our potential 10th country.
For the third straight year, 100% of the scholarships we awarded were long-term. Since so many young women have lived lives of “consistent inconsistency” (losing parents, fluctuating income, pandemics, monsoons, floods, gender discrimination, etc.), we want U-GO support to be as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar for our scholars. We tell them that we will be with them every year until the happy day they graduate, as long as they perform academically.
And boy, do they ever. For the second consecutive year, the advancement rate for U-GO scholars was >98%. This is not only a sign that our partners are screening well for the most motivated and qualified students, but also that these young women take the opportunity very seriously.
We have continued layering in life skills classes that compliment what the young women learn in the classroom. Led by U-GO Global Board member Carrie Burke and U-GO Singapore Board member Juliet Zhu, we now have female business leaders from across Asia participating in a regular online speaking series called Unstoppable Together. The first session was attended by 89 scholars from our cohorts in the Philippines and Indonesia. Our next session is scheduled for this coming weekend and will be expanded to include Bangladesh and Pakistan. At the same time, U-GO Global Board member Martina Lauchengco recruited several tech executives in Silicon Valley who are volunteering to teach AI skills classes over Zoom to our scholars. The pilot session with a group of Filipina scholars resulted in overwhelmingly positive feedback. Next sessions are being planned as we look to expand this program and ‘Futureproof’ our scholars in relevant fields with AI readiness.
The demand for U-GO scholarships continues to be off the charts. In the Philippines, as one example, we had planned to award 330 scholarships but were overwhelmed with over 23,000 applications. That’s a lower acceptance rate than Harvard or Stanford, which we are not proud of, as we feel every group that cares about education should aim for low rejection rates and high acceptance rates. So…back to work! 😊
I hope you can check out what it means to our scholars to be welcomed into the U-GO family – here is our Tears of Joy video from Indonesia. And here is an inspiring story of one of our Filipina scholars, Jennifer Santiago, who is being raised by her grandfather and was the speaker at this year’s U-GO Hong Kong Wine Dinner.
Thanks so much for being with us on this journey. You are helping us to make dreams come true, and on our current trajectory we remain on track for our 10-year goal of 20,000 scholars and our long-term goal of 100,000 graduates.
All the best,
John Wood
Founder and CEO
Postcards from Asia
The greatest part of my job is getting to see our work in action. This past month took me back to the Philippines to visit our partner, The Ayala Foundation, as well as, for the first time, Pakistan and Tanzania to meet with our incredible partners as well as U-GO scholars. Getting to see the incredible work our partners do on the ground has me more confident than ever that our students are in great hands.
Meeting with the scholars, I continue to be humbled and emboldened by their determination, bravery, and ambition. I hope you enjoy a few memorable moments from my journey.
- Tom Monroe, U-GO Director of Programs
PHILIPPINES: I met with a small group of scholars including Edraline (front left, yellow shirt), a U-GO graduate who we met as a student in 2023, who is now practicing as a teacher in Manila.
PAKISTAN: Here I met with a group of scholars who have gone through their primary and secondary education with our partners Developments in Literary, all hoping for Tier 1 placement at university. Right now we have three U-GO scholars at one such Tier 1 school, Institute of Business Administration (IBA), which is essentially the MIT of Pakistan.
TANZANIA: This is Maria, who made a moving speech (photo of the transcript below) on behalf of her fellow U-GO scholars during my visit with our partner Nurturing Minds.
EVENTS GALORE!
Hong Kong Board celebrates a successful fundraiser
We were thrilled to see so many of you in the last three months as John and Amy travelled through Singapore and San Francisco, Zurich and London, and finally Hong Kong and Sydney.
As many of you have expressed a desire to make supporting U-GO a family initiative, we were delighted to have 15-year old Iris Crampton, daughter of UK Board members Thomas and Thuy-Tien Crampton, as a junior reporter and volunteer on the scene at our London event in October. Here is her account of what was a memorable night for all.
U-GO at the Financial Times
By Iris Crampton
John Ridding, CEO of the Financial Times at the U-GO FT Event
On October 23rd, the Financial Times' new global headquarters welcomed U-GO for our third London fundraiser, attracting longtime supporters and many newcomers inspired by our mission.
The event aimed to raise awareness of U-GO in the UK and broaden its community of London-based support.
Saboteur, the London-based branding agency, also used the occasion to unveil U-GO’s new branding…
