Student report from The SIGHT Award 2020 and Global Health Night Event, November 2020
By Solomyia Kasyanchuk and Nora Piay Fernandez, Student Coordinators.
The past 25th of November we celebrated the 2020 edition of Global Health Night and SIGHT Award. Both events have been going on for some years, organized by students and for students. This year, members of the SIGHT Student Organization Network and the SIGHT Student Coordinators came together once again to bring all students in Sweden an exciting joint event that successfully combined the Global Health Night and the SIGHT Award ceremony.
The evening of the 25th was special, not only because of the great panellists and speakers lined up and the engagement of students that joined us as audience (we had 180 people listening and watching!), but also because GHN was taken outside of Karolinska Institutet for the first time. The Global Health Night and SIGHT Award 2020 was hosted by the Stockholm School of Economics, and it allowed to bring the topic of Global Health to a more diverse audience, with different backgrounds and that will contribute to the interdisciplinarity of the field in their future careers. We would like to thank the Sustainability Group of the Student Association of Stockholm School of Economics (SASSE) for their engagement and support from day one, as well as the Mistra Centre for Sustainable Markets (Misum) for their great contributions to make this evening perfect.
Many topics were covered during the night. From the effects of climate change on people’s health and its parallelisms with the current pandemic, to a very rich discussion on the economic impact of lockdown and the arising socioeconomic inequalities that contribute to an increase in ill health. Students with different backgrounds and from more than 10 universities all over Sweden dialled in and asked questions, participated in the interactive breaks and some of them even won a prize!
However, the biggest winner of the night was Ebba Malmqvist. She was the recipient of the SIGHT Award 2020 for her work on the effects of air pollution on the health of women and children in low- and middle-income countries. The prize was presented by Stefan and Susanne Einhorn, who inspired us with their words of wisdom and encouragement. Congratulations Ebba!
As student coordinators, we were very excited to participate in the event at every stage, from deciding on the topic for the event, to choosing speakers and organizing the agenda for the night. To organize an event of such a size, which such prominent speakers and panellists, and together with many partners was challenging at times, but taught us a lot. The day of the event we experienced much pressure to ensure the success of the event, because after months of planning, you always worry how something will turn out, especially with the unexpected technical difficulties of a fully online event. But both being behind the camera as a co-moderator and behind the screen helping with logistics, as the night went on, we couldn’t help but feel honoured to have been a part of such a successful and inspiring event. We hope to take with us many lessons learned, and one day with our own research and work join from the side of the speakers and panellists.
