With a donation of 10 million SEK, Conny and Lena Kullman wanted to give more students the opportunity to undertake their degree projects abroad, providing both financial support and mentoring. The result was The Global Mentorship Program.
The Kullmans now spend the Swedish autumn and winter in Australia, pictured here on an outing to the Blue Mountains.
For Conny Kullman, mentoring has played a particularly important role in shaping his life. He graduated in Electrical Engineering from Chalmers in 1974 and went on to work in space technology at Saab Space. A few years later, he moved to the United States with his wife Lena and their children, having secured a job as an engineer at Intelsat, a satellite communications company.
What was initially intended to be just a couple of years abroad turned out to be the beginning of a long international career.
“A friend of ours once said that we had truly lived the American dream. I had never really thought about it that way before, but looking back on our time in the US, I suppose that is true. We arrived with very little and went on to experience an incredible journey.”
At Intelsat, Conny worked in systems development and gradually took on responsibility for increasingly large projects. A more experienced colleague recognised his work and saw potential in him that Conny himself had not yet fully realised.
“I had never really aspired to climb the career ladder. I was very happy working as an engineer. But he started challenging me and encouraging me to take on new roles. Without him, I would never have developed in the way I did at the company,” says Conny.
With his mentor’s support, he progressed from engineer to Head of Satellite Operations, then to divisional director and eventually CEO of Intelsat.
“I believe most people have far greater potential than they realise themselves. Sometimes, all it takes is someone to help them recognise it.”
Creating more opportunities for students
Lena and Conny had been following Chalmers’ progress in innovation and entrepreneurship and identified an area where they wanted to make a contribution. Through his work, Conny had regularly travelled to countries in Africa, where he met entrepreneurs and businesses operating under very different conditions from those he was used to.
“As engineers, we often focus on the technical aspects. But it is also important to understand what it takes to turn ideas into reality and create something that works in practice,” he says.
The result was The Global Mentorship Program, which was launched in 2019. Through the programme, Chalmers master’s students can receive financial support to carry out their degree projects in low- and middle-income countries, with a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship. Students are also supported by mentors, both in Sweden and in the country they travel to.
“Students often don’t have the financial means to take on this kind of opportunity. We wanted to give them the chance to do something they might otherwise never have been able to do,” say Conny and Lena.
Since the programme began, the couple have followed the students’ work closely. Every year, they meet the participants once their degree projects have been completed. What has impressed them most is the way students develop when they find themselves in a completely new environment.
“They often realise quite quickly that their project plans don’t work out quite as they had expected. They encounter a reality that is very different from the one they had imagined. I think having to adapt to that is one of the most valuable lessons they learn.”
Taking their master’s project to Mozambique
With support from The Global Mentorship Program, William Samin and Emma Andersson travelled to Mozambique to explore how social innovation can create new opportunities for female entrepreneurs.
The Global Mentorship Program
From 2020 Chalmers has a mentorship program with focus on innovation, entrepreneurship and internationalization in low- and middle-income countries in Asia, Africa and South America. The Global Mentorship Program creates unique opportunities to practice international work and to build your networks in preparation for your future career.