One of the issues about providing Rotary Global Scholarships is that some applicants tend to use them as a means to enhance their qualifications for their own benefit. However ...

Article by PDG Nick Curry, Assistant Regional Rotary Foundation Coordinator

... However, District 9620 has recently sent two Global Scholars away on interesting missions that it is hoped will provide many altruistic benefits in the future.

Christopher Chew is a highly qualified physician whose career is taking him further into academia and research, particularly in the field of infectious diseases and the epidemiology of acute febrile illness in South and Southeast Asia. One of his aims is to build systems to support low-skilled rural health workers and, as such, Christopher will also need to be practised in many other non-medical disciplines in order to build artificial intelligence systems which use clinical and epidemiology data to construct dynamic algorithmic clinical management tools.

Chris will be studying at the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) in Bangkok - a research collaboration between Mahidol University, Oxford University and the UK's Welcome Trust. MORU conducts targeted clinical trials and public health research that aim to discover and develop appropriate, affordable interventions that measurably improve the health of people living in resource-limited parts of the world.

Christopher’s application ticks several of the Areas of Focus boxes but the committee were most impressed by his commitment to disease prevention.

Jack Baldwin also brings a highly credentialed CV to the party, graduating from Queensland University with a first-class honours degree.

He has gone to Oxford University where he intends to take International Dispute Settlement, International Environmental Law and International Human Rights Law. The program importantly provides the opportunity to gain an advanced, interdisciplinary understanding of economic and financial concepts and their interrelationship with international law topics.

Jack is passionate about balancing the basic dictates of international trade law with the need to enshrine and protect international environmental and labour standards. He wants to work on the prevention and peaceful resolution of cross-border disputes, particularly those concerning international trade and its intersection with natural resource management and the environment. Jack sees his foremost goal is to contribute to the prevention and peaceful resolution of cross-border disputes, particularly those concerning international trade.

As part of his overall aims, Jack would also like to implement investor-State dispute settlement reform. Investor-State dispute settlement was originally intended to supplement weaker legal systems but, increasingly, is being used by multi-nationals to deter governments from enacting legitimate public policy reforms related to public health, the environment and human rights and labour standards.