MPT Archives - Millennium Point

We’re excited to say applications for the next round of funding for projects is now open!

A project to build a fully operational light aircraft, STEM training toolkits for schools and a car engineering workshop for girls are just some of the exciting projects amongst the successful applicants in The Millennium Point Charitable Trust’s Small Grants Programme.

Grants up to £20,000 can be applied for here, you have until the 2^nd December to apply, good luck!

Endless possibilities with STEM

Over the past five years, the Millennium Point Charitable Trust has awarded over £2 million to charities, not-for-profits, community groups and schools to further STEM education. Millennium Point Charitable Trust has previously seen the rewarding outcome of past projects such as ‘Breaking the Barriers to STEM’ with a fantastic STEM garden. Ahead Partnership engaged students at their Digitech Festival with inspiring guest speeches and activities from STEM industries. Ark Tindall Primary transformed an outside space into a Science Area to enhance their STEM curriculum.

Last year Millennium Point Trust saw 100 applications from schools and not-for-profit organisations all aiming to recieve a share of the grant money to better STEM education in the region.

Vanessa Currie, Head of People, Learning and Development at Millennium Point comments:

“We are pleased to announce the latest round of grant funding from the Millennium Point Charitable Trust.

The West Midlands is the largest hub for science and innovation outside of London, with the youngest population in Europe and one of the highest percentiles of STEM graduates in the UK.

With many schools being forced to cut costs and resources to deliver their curriculums, we risk seeing the skills gap widen as less children are engaged in STEM, which is why this initiative is crucial now, more than ever.”

Award-winning charity in the heart of Birmingham

All funding given by Millennium Point Charitable Trust is made possible by the commercial activity that takes place in the landmark Millennium Point building. It all feeds back into the charitable trust, enabling to be donated and invested in STEM-related organisations, projects, and initiatives.

When booking events with Millennium Point you are widening your CSR and supporting the local region. Find out how and more about our unique event spaces here.

Apply for a grant today and support the future of STEM

At Millennium Point we believe that STEM is important for the future of the region, so we are excited to see what this year’s applications bring.

The next round of applications for the 2023 grant are now open and close at 5pm on 2^nd December 2022.

Since its launch in 2018, Millennium Point Charitable Trust has provided almost £400k to more than 100 projects across education, STEM-focused charities, sporting charities, and museums.

You can apply for a grant on our website here, if you need any help look at our frequently asked questions page or speak to one of our friendly Trust team.

We are delighted to announce that Hatem Kasseir from Yardley, has been named the winner of this year’s life-changing Millennium Point Charitable Trust Scholarship, earning a fully-funded degree at Birmingham City University (BCU). This degree is joint funded by Millennium Point Charitable Trust in Partnership with Birmingham City University.

How Hatem became a Scholarship winner

Hatem was currently studying an Extended Diploma in IT (Network and Security) at Solihull College and had ambitions to study Computer Science at university. Information of the Millennium Point Scholarship landed in Hatem’s inbox, where he knew straight away, he had nothing to lose by applying.

In Hatem’s application he made it clear how much winning the Scholarship would mean to him, his great passion for computers and his mission to use computing and technology to better lives as a whole. The Millennium Point Charitable Trust team were hugely impressed with Hatem’s application, and selected him along with four other finalists.

All the finalists attended an assessment day at Millennium Point, where they each presented to a panel of five judges, Hatem impressed the panel the most and was selected as the lucky winner of this year’s Scholarship, which has already helped launch the careers of seven outstanding STEM students. Hatem’s degree in Computer Science at Birmingham City University (BCU), will start in September 2022.

Pictured left to right: Abbie Vlahakis, CEO of Millennium Point and Scholarship winner Hatem Kasseir.

Hatem’s reaction to winning

Hatem was shocked and over the moon at being chosen as the winner. The Scholarship winner said “My first reaction was a bit of shock, happiness and excitement. I didn’t know what to do, I was just really happy because I’d put a lot of work and effort into it, so to get that end result was fantastic.

The message I want to give to everyone is that there’s so many opportunities out there so always go for that opportunity, never think you might not have a chance or that it’s just too far for you, always try and reach your goals, no matter how high they are and keep dreaming on.”

A few words from the CEO

Abbie Vlahakis, CEO of Millennium Point added: “When we met Hatem it was really clear from the start that he had real passion for his chosen subject of Computer Science and he was set the task of choosing a problem and how he could come up with a solution. It was really clear and well articulated and when asked about what the Scholarship would actually mean to him, it was really clear that it meant so so much.”

Identifying STEM talent

Now approaching it’s tenth year, the Millennium Point Trust Scholarship has already changed the lives of nine people from the region through their degrees, including 2017 Sagal Qodah, who has since gone on to graduate with a First Class Honours degree in Civil Engineering. She now works for Jacobs Engineering Group, showing the great paths people can take with their career, via a Millennium Point Scholarship.

Apply for the 2023 Scholarship

Each year, the Millennium Point Charitable Trust jointly funds an undergraduate degree in partnership with Birmingham City University at their Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment, which covers over 20 different courses across computing, digital technology, engineering and the built environment. We’re helping people across the region unlock their future in STEM. For more information on how to apply or get involved in the 2023 Scholarship program please, visit www.millenniumpoint.org.uk/scholarship.

Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint. Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands.

Our CEO Abbie Vlahakis and members of the Millennium Point Charitable Trust were invited to King Solomon International Business School to unveil a plaque commemorating our support for their eco-friendly STEM garden.

The “Breaking The Barriers To Stem” project is a great example of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) education projects we fund in the West Midlands region. It was great to catch up with staff and pupils at King Solomon, seeing the positive impact the project has had.

(Pupils from King Solomon International Business School holding the plaque, with Abbie Vlahakis, Millennium Point CEO and Jean McLeod, Head of PSP.)

Who’s running the project?
The project is managed by a parent’s voluntary organisation in partnership with King Solomon International Business School – Birmingham’s first all-through (4-19) Christian free school, which specialises in international business and entrepreneurship. The Parent School Partnership (PSP) was established in 2015 by parents of pupils who attend the school. To this end, PSP activities have been by donation of time, gifts and resources from willing parents and community partners – and now Millennium Point.

What’s it all about?
An inner-city school in Birmingham with a high proportion of BAME (Black, Asian and Ethnic Minorities) pupils, its ambition at the start of the project, was to ‘break barriers’ and increase STEM engagement across the entire pupil population, whatever their gender or ethnicity, through a series of onsite activities, workshops, clubs, as well as STEM-related off-site trips. For a lot of children at the school, this will be their only chance to experience this kind of specialist learning in addition to the national curriculum and the aim is for them to be immersed into the world of STEM; give them opportunities that they otherwise would not have to boost STEM participation and be excited about the possibilities of careers in STEM.

The PSP and school has identified gaps in the children’s exposure to STEM learning and wants to reach individuals from urban, challenged or hard to reach backgrounds by providing all of this free of charge to prevent barriers to their involvement.

The project includes the following:

Code Club – an after-school club designed to immerse students in the world of code – HTML, Java, CSS etc.
Eco-friendly sensory wildlife garden – designed to help students explore science in a practical way and learn about life cycles, growing, plants, climate, habitats, weather. The Code Club will create a QR code for the various plants and environments, which can be scanned to get the information about the optimum climate for growth etc.
Equipment – for a variety of science and maths experiments, including one which will measure the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide levels in classrooms and outside areas.
Excursions – a range of STEM-related school trips, including Dudley Canal and Tunnel Trust; Planetarium at Thinktank; Jaguar Land Rover Wolverhampton; Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

What impact has the project made?
The project has been a breath of fresh air to the school, offering opportunities within STEM, that without the funding, would not of been possible. The garden has helped pupils explore science in a fun engaging way, developing their education around life cycles, growing plants, climate effects, habitats and weather.

It was also fantastic to hear the positive impact the “Code Club” has had on the pupils. Pupils have been immerged in the world of code, with top technical practices such as HTML, Java and CSS being learned at the school.

These skills go a long way in providing the pupils a brilliant opportunity to kickstart their career within STEM.

How the Millennium Point Charitable Trust can help you
The Millennium Point Charitable Trust is committed to supporting the growth of STEM education in the West Midlands region, through funding, resources, projects and events.

Explore what we do or get in touch to see how we can work together.

On Friday 3^rd December St Basils hosted their big sleepout at Millennium Point with the aim to raise funds to help end youth homelessness. The event previously hosted at Birmingham Cathedral moved to versatile event venue Millennium Point. Approximately 300 people joined up to do the sleepout to fundraise for the charity.

Due to last year and the pandemic, 2020’s sleepout was cancelled. Usually, the event raises over £100,000 so the organisers hope that this year’s is the bigger than ever. The event tries to appeal not only to the adventurous nature of people. But also, to their willingness to support young people with additional challenges of homelessness through these difficult times.

Homelessness shouldn’t be part of growing up

St Basils work with young people ages 16-25 who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, to enable them to find and keep a home, grow their confidence, develop their skills, increase opportunities, and prevent homelessness.

During April 2020 – March 2021, St Basils has been able to provide 3,860 young people with advice and support, 590 young people stayed with them every night. Not only this 92% of young people that stayed with St Basils moved on in a planned positive way.

A wealth of support to make the event a success

The event was also supported by projects and companies that made the evening a success.

Langar Aid, a project that that focuses on fighting hunger worldwide and provides vital food and water in emergencies, supplied curry and samosas to guests to warm up. The Band of the West Midlands Fire Service rose spirits by providing some tunes in a festive way. Salvation Army Cradley Heath knitted hats for the outreach team to give out, Campanile Hotels also donated thermal hats.

A team from Squire Patton Boggs, a global law firm, had the important role of handing out the cardboard boxes to guests. The boxes were kindly provided by the packaging manufactures Schumacher.

And of course, everyone that helped raise money and took part in sleeping rough for one night, so young people don’t have to.

As a charity ourselves, we were thrilled to be involved

Supporting young people improves the chances they have for their future. Helping provide a safe space, education and resources allows them to build better foundations for later life. As a strong supporter for education for STEM, Millennium Point wanted to take part.

A team from Millennium Point including CEO Abbie Vlahakis took part in the sleepout to help raise money for the life-changing charity St Basils.

So far Millennium Point have raised over £1,500, however we’re not finished yet! There’s still time to donate.

Couldn’t make it to the sleepout? You can still make a difference

It costs £5 a day to support a young person and keep them at a St Basils project. Supporters can make a one-off donation here. Help change a young person’s life for the better today.

Want to book an event space with Millennium Point?

The multi-award-winning Millennium Point has 17 versatile event spaces to choose from and an excellent events team to help you with your event.

For further information about the event, charity, or venue you can get in contact with our team.