British Varkey Foundation (organiser of the prestigious World Student Prize, together with U.S. company Chegg.org) announced the list of the world’s 50 best students. A group of three Polish students: Martyna Łuszczek, Marcelina Maciąg and Mikołaj Wołanin, were listed among the elite. 

Students who entered the competition were judged on their academic performance, impact on their peers, impact on their community, creativity or innovation.

One of the awarded students is Mikołaj Wolanin (born 2002),  president of the Foundation for Students’ Rights, which he founded in 2019 with the permission of the family court when he was still a minor. Since then, the Foundation has been undertaking ongoing advocacy and intervention activities in the field of students’ rights. Mikołaj is also the chairman of the Main Committee of the Pupil Rights Knowledge Olympiad, in which more than 700 people from all over Poland enrolled in the previous school year. He is also a representative of the Foundation at Child Rights Connect in Geneva – an organisation providing substantive background to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, as well as a member of the Pupil Rights and Responsibilities Team at the Ministry of Education.

Another nominee is 17-year-old Marcelina Maciąg, the winner of the “Matura Nobel Prize” contest for leading youth and mental health initiatives, founder of Youth Kindness Revolution, an organisation dedicated to fighting mental violence among young people, and president of the Youth Senate of the Mazowieckie Voivodeship. The Global Student Prize recognised her work in the area of “health and well-being”.

The third nominated Pole is Martyna Łuszczek a 19-year-old included in the prestigious ‘25under25’ ranking last year, listed by Forbes magazine and the Warsaw office of McKinsey & Company. She is also the winner of the E(x)plory 2021 competition for her co-development of a device to collect and recycle microplastics in water reservoirs. Her work was recognised in the field of environmental protection.

The British Pole community congratulates the winners and wishes all the best to Polish students across the World!

Photo: X/kawecki_maciej

Tomasz Modrzejewski