The International Grammar School has had many fine graduates in its 39-year existence.
For this reason, the School instituted the inaugural IGS Alum of the Year in 2022 and is seeking fresh nominations this year.
The criteria are as follows:
1. The candidates must be nominated by a member of the IGS community. Nominations are anonymous.
2. The candidate should have made a significant difference in their community.
3. The candidate should exemplify the IGS core values of Diversity, Personal Achievement, Connectedness, Vibrancy and Authenticity.
The 2023 IGS Alum of the Year will be selected by a three-person committee made up of The Principal, The Director of Advancement and a long-term and respected staff member.
If available, the Winner will attend Speech Night 2023 for a short acknowledgment of their achievements and to receive their trophy. There is also a perpetual trophy, that remains at the School.
The 2022 Alum of the Year was Nicholas Jordan. Click here to see his two nominations and here to view his acceptance speech.
Already, in 2023, we have two excellent nominations for the 2023 Alum of the Year.
1. Katie Scarf (2010)
Katie Scarf is one of the warmest, giving, and kindhearted people I know and, in my opinion, one of the best humans to have come through IGS.
Anyone who encountered Katie throughout her time at IGS will undoubtedly remember her as a connected, vibrant, and authentic person. Her involvement in the many and various school sporting carnivals and arts festivals was always marked by her convivial, ‘have-a-go’ attitude, connecting people no matter their age or skill, all in the name of sharing a laugh with as many people as she could convince to join her. Whether she is subbing for friends’ local sports teams in a sport she has never played, helping a friend screenprint fabrics for two days straight to help them meet a uni assessment deadline, or dropping care packages to people who were in self-isolation over the COVID-19 pandemic, Katie still embodies these qualities throughout her adult life.
Katie’s warm and convivial nature eventually led her to the Addi Road Food Pantry where, even throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Katie was busy volunteering her time to connect people struggling to feed themselves in her local community with perfectly good and healthy food that would otherwise go to landfill.
Her passion and dedication to her work at Addi Road was recently rewarded when she was offered and accepted the more senior role as Team Leader of the Camperdown Food Pantry.
I am so grateful that IGS gave me the opportunity to make an inspiring lifelong friend like Katie, and I am so proud of what she has done with her life and for her community, as should anyone at IGS, now or then, who contributed towards sculpting her into the fantastic human she is.
2. Ben Gran (2009)
I would like to nominate Ben Gram for Alum of the year. Ben is an IGS alum who currently works as a Nurse anaesthetist at Helsinki University Hospital where he works on breast cancer surgeries. He is also the Community Developer at Metropolitan Entrepreneurship Society, which aims to develop a new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs to build a more positive and sustainable future.
Ben has a passion for the future of healthcare development and recently gave a TED talk that has amassed almost one million views where he makes a compelling case for integrating nurses and their invaluable insights and experience into health tech innovation to help make care (and the process of providing it) better for generations to come. As the globe grapples with a healthcare crisis in the form of the pandemic, and in Australia nurses are leaving the profession in unprecedented numbers due to overwork, burnout and low wages Ben’s work could not be more needed. The school should be very proud of him!
Nominations can be sent to IGS Director of Advancement Paul Galea at paulg@igssyd.nsw.edu.au with a summary of why the Alum has been nominated.
