Celebrating our Student Community

We hosted our very first virtual CIOB Student Festival on the 7-8 April 2021. The aim of the event was to bring together all our student members from across the world to inspire, inform and celebrate this strong membership community. One hundred and eighty-eight delegates attended the free event over the two days with representation from 24 different countries. It was an impressive collaboration between 28 global contributors producing a diverse range of industry-focused content both innovative and thought-provoking. Furthermore, the networking feature on our virtual platform, Hop In, was a popular feature which experienced 256 unique conversations over the two days by members and attendees curious to meet and discover new contacts. We’re already planning our next one so save the date: Wednesday 9 - Thursday 10 March 2022. 

We have over 8000 student members at all stages of their learning journey including those new to the industry on undergraduate programmes in full and/or part time studies in both traditional and degree apprenticeship programmes, as well as those who already have a number of years’ experience in the construction industry embarking on postgraduate qualifications. For us, continued learning and development is of paramount importance for all our members no matter where they are in their construction career, but it’s even more important that our student members feel supported and we want to guide them as best as we can. We mustn’t forget the Student Voice, these members are after all, the future of our industry. 

At the local level, our regional teams work very hard to maintain a local ecosystem of engaged student members through a range of activities, such as Novus (soon to be rebranded Tomorrow’s Leaders), site visits, webinars and other student-oriented events. Please also encourage your students to join their local CIOB LinkedIn group (links to these have been added below). This will allow them to network with industry practitioners as well as other student members, not just from the UK but internationally. We have also produced a new Student video that we would love if you shared with your students. This gives them an overview of who we are and how they can get involved. 

The hotly anticipated final stage of the annual Global Student Challenge, which comprises 6 teams, is underway, and the winning team will be announced at our upcoming Members’ Forum in a couple of weeks time. In its 7th year, teams act as a Board of Directors running their own construction company, and the remaining six teams represent a truly global line up of finalists. 

These are:

• Harsa Bayanaka – Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia
• CQUNB – Chongqing University, China
• Wonders – Massey University, New Zealand
• Eco Advance – Taylor’s University, Malaysia
• Welly Construction – Wellington Institute of Technology, New Zealand
• Greenwich Construction – University of Greenwich, UK

An impressive 35 teams, which are made up of full-time students studying on a built environment degree, started the contest in January. The challenge is a real test of students’ construction industry know-how, where they are required to implement strategies and refine tactics using the MERIT software. You can track the success of the teams throughout these final stages by following CIOB’s Twitter feed for updates: @theCIOB. We wish them all the best of luck!