SANTO DOMINGO. - Banco Popular Dominicano offered a day of educational and motivational talks to students applying for the 2024 Popular Excellence scholarship program with the aim of continuing to stimulate their academic and professional excellence.
The event brought together more than 300 people both in person and virtually, including students, authorities and directors of the academic institutions allied to the scholarship program, as well as executives from the banking entity.
This is an integration activity that precedes the announcement of the beneficiaries of the 60 scholarships that Banco Popular will award to deserving students from low-income backgrounds, inviting them to pursue higher and technical studies in 32 different careers at 11 universities and study centers in the country.
The Popular Excellence scholarship program, the largest in the Dominican financial system, has 290 active scholarship recipients and 300 graduates, with nearly 80% of them now employed in a trade or starting their own business, demonstrating the initiative's high employability rate. Over the past decade, Popular has allocated more than RD$200 million to the development of this educational program.
Education and employment
In his remarks, Mr. José Mármol, Executive Vice President of Corporate Communications, Reputation and Responsible Banking at Grupo Popular, reaffirmed the objective of the Excelencia Popular scholarship program to promote quality education and open up opportunities for the employability of young people.
“For us, it is essential to promote values-based education, as we believe this is the foundation for building a better society, with ethical professionals committed to the sustainable development of our country,” the bank executive stated.
Program of talks
The young talents participating in the event learned about essential soft skills for success in university and in their lives, thanks to a presentation by Isaac García, a collaborating professor in the Commercial Management and Marketing Department at Barna Management School. Consultant Arturo López Valerio, representing TABUGA, addressed the keys to understanding the current and future digital world. Meanwhile, Edwin Sánchez, representing INTEC, shared the experience of developing the Quisqueya Sat-1 project, the first Dominican satellite designed to combat sargassum seaweed.
