A year ago, Alaa Abuellif was spending 15 hours a week on the bus, travelling from Tokoroa to university and back each day. Now she’s living on campus at the University of Waikato, making her dream of becoming a software engineer a whole lot easier.
Alaa is the recipient of a Spark Scholarship, worth $10,000 and offered to only five New Zealand students each year. The scholarship is designed to foster a more diverse talent pool in the digital technology sector, a cause Alaa is particularly passionate about.