Alumni Reunion 2008: old friends, new ideas

Around 300 alumni and guests return to Imperial College to celebrate graduating and meet former classmates - News

Wednesday 24 September 2008
By Naomi Weston

Alumni from around the world gathered at Imperial College London on Saturday 20 September 2008, to celebrate their time at the College with former classmates.

Around 300 people attended the day-long event focused on innovation, which included a full programme of lectures, tours and social events.

On Friday 19 September, an informal welcome reception was held in the Imperial College Union bar for those alumni who arrived early to take part in the event.

The reunion officially started on Saturday 20 September with a welcome speech by Sir Roy Anderson, the College’s new Rector, and a keynote lecture by alumnus Michael Birch, co-founder of Bebo, the world’s third largest social networking site, who graduated in Physics in 1991.

Michael talked about his experiences as an undergraduate at Imperial and how he came to found Bebo in his lecture entitled, ‘Innovating the Social Experience: The Birth of Bebo’.

In addition, a range of lectures were given by Imperial academics from across the College throughout Saturday afternoon. They included Professor Donal Bradley, of the Department of Physics, who gave a talk on his development of polymer light emitting diodes (PLEDs) which are now playing a key role in display technology and could be used one day to create display screens worn as accessories or even on clothing.

Professor Bart Clarysse, from Imperial College Business School, gave a talk on ‘Innovation is more than just keeping up appearances’, where he discussed the key innovation challenges that businesses are facing.

In addition, Professor Stephen Smith, Principal of the Faculty of Medicine and Chief Executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, gave a presentation on Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust and St Mary’s NHS Trust coming together with Imperial to create the UK’s first Academic Health Science Centre. Other speakers included Professor Guang-Zhong Yang, Director of Medical Imaging at Imperial, Emeritus Professor David Phillips, Senior Science Ambassador for Schools, and John Page, Head of New Ventures at Imperial Innovations.

Alumni Reunion 2008

During the reunion, a number of College departments and buildings were open for tours. These included the Departments of Aeronautics, Bioengineering, Chemistry, Computing, Materials and Physics, as well as tours of the Queen’s Tower, the South Kensington Campus, Charing Cross and St Mary’s Campuses.

The reunion dinner, hosted by Sir Roy Anderson, himself an alumnus of the College, brought the weekend to a close. He said: “This annual reunion marks the opportunity for you, the College’s alumni, to come back to College to both reunite with your former classmates and friends, and to see what life is like at Imperial today. Taking part in my first alumni reunion as Rector of Imperial College, I have been delighted to see so many of you back at the campus throughout the day.”

Sarn Grewal, who graduated in Computing in 1978, attended the weekend to reunite with several of his former classmates. He said: “The Alumni Reunion was organised extremely well and it was great to see some of my old classmates from 30 years ago. The Rector's keynote lecture was excellent and Michael Birch proved to be a very entertaining and inspiring speaker.”

Liz Gregson, Head of Alumni Relations and Communications at the College, said: “The day was a huge success, with feedback suggesting that alumni very much enjoyed the programme on offer. Guests travelled back to College from 20 countries around the world to meet up with their former classmates and friends. This included a large group of St Mary’s Hospital Medical School graduates from 1988, who were given a specially arranged tour of the St Mary’s Campus, and a group of Electrical Engineers from 1948, which included former Rector Sir Eric Ash, celebrating 60 years on from graduation.”

Alumni of the College wishing to come back to campus for a similar event in 2009 can look out for details of next year’s reunion on the Alumni website