From the Nominator

The Aston for Life platform launched in July 2023 to support Aston University’s 110,000+ alumni in their personal and professional development. Aston is committed to ensuring our students are "ready for work and life," and this does not end at graduation. The Aston for Life platform is an exclusive online space for our global alumni community to share knowledge, experience, insights, and inspiration to support each other in their professional development. It offers a personalized experience, whether alumni are just starting out in their career and looking for inspiration, navigating a first role in senior leadership, happily retired, or somewhere in between. Upon registering, users identify their areas of interest, such as leadership and management, international careers, entrepreneurship, women in business, or financial planning. Content based on these interests populates the user’s personalized feed to make each person’s experience unique. The library of content continues to grow – primarily created by the alumni community – and provides information and guidance to support graduates at all stages of their lives. A project manager managed the project from inception through launch, overseeing the following: market research, a consultation exercise with alumni, project scope, the appointment of a digital agency to partner on design, the building and delivering of a platform, content production, branding, marketing, and a launch event. Currently, 2,800 alumni are using the platform, and we expect to have 4,400 (10% of our e-contactable alumni community) using the platform by the end of the first year.

From the Judges

The investment in launching the platform was impressive. The creativity and work that went into this project is wonderful to see.