Stories of alumni

19 August 2025

Ragavan, a fellow from 2018, completes his PhD

It is fair to say that the fruits of Iceland´s development support, through the work of the GRÓ Fisheries Training Programme, is evidently clear in the Sri Lanka fisheries today.
29 July 2025

GRÓ Alumni Network Mongolia Officially Established

The first official GRÓ alumni association, GRÓ Alumni Network Mongolia, was established at an inaugural meeting on the 4th of July in Ulaanbaatar. The meeting brought together 28 GRÓ alumni, including 22 participants that attended online and 6 in-person attendees.
18 July 2025

Mohamed Altamash Khan: Engaging Boys and Men for Gender Justice in India and Beyond

Mohamed Altamash Khan, a GRÓ GEST alumnus from India, has built a career dedicated to reshaping harmful gender norms by engaging boys and men in conversations around equality. Currently, he works as Senior Gender Trainer and Program Manager at the NGO Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA), and is also pursuing a Master’s Degree in Education and International Development at University College London (UCL).
27 June 2025

The small country that teaches the world – Iceland and development cooperation through the education of the GRÓ programmes

A translation of an original article appearing in visir.is June 27 2025
FTP fellows at the alumni meeting in Beijing. From right to left: Xing Kun (felow from 2014), Inga Dóra Pétursdóttir (deputy head of mission), Zhang Qian (fellow from 2017), Liu Xinshan (fellow from 2000), Þórir Ibsen (ambassador), Stefán Úlfarsson (specialist at FTP), Chen Huixia (fellow from 2019) and Pétur Yang Li (commercial counsellor).
20 June 2025

Alumni meeting in Beijing

On June 11th four former FTP fellows, joined with 15 other former fellows from other GRÓ training programmes, in a GRÓ alumni networking reception hosted by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing.
Mr. Mambetov and his curious
4 April 2025

Taalai Mambetov, GRÓ LRT Alumnus: Advancing Sustainable Land Use and Ecological Restoration

Taalai Mambetov, GRÓ LRT 2024 alumnus, works as a lecturer at the American University of Central Asia (AUCA) and Kyrgyz National University (KNU), where he teaches courses on environmental sustainability, climate science, botany and plant physiology. Alongside teaching, he conducts research on ecological restoration, sustainable land use and soil carbon assessment. One of his main challenges in his work is promoting sustainable management of natural ecosystems, particularly pasturelands and degraded soils, which are crucial for Kyrgyzstan's agricultural sector. Currently, Taalai is pursuing a PhD at the Institute of Biology, National Academy of Science of Kyrgyz Republic, focusing on grass species for land restoration.