A citizen from Ufa wins a trip to Liverpool, England, to compete for a life changing prize.

29-year-old Leysan Abdullina fr om Ufa, Russia, has won a place in the final of a global enterprise competition called “Your Big Year”. Her name was announced along with 23 other finalists at the “Shanghai World Expo” on Saturday 16th October.

The competition was designed to encourage global citizenship and social responsibility

through enterprise and has received 44,333 registrations from 168 different countries.

She will fly to Liverpool on November 13th and take part in the grand final of the competition during the Global Entrepreneurship Week (15-21st November). The prize is a life changing opportunity to travel the globe for a year – all expenses paid, working on education and various conservation projects. Leysan will be joining the other international finalists to compete in the week long final.

The free competition has been designed to test entrants’ skills in communication, charity fund-raising and entrepreneurial spirit. It was launched in July and was open to entry to adults worldwide. Contestants took part in various online challenges during the 4 -month period.

Leysan is a Development Manager at “MK Technologies” in Ufa. She attended Bashkir State

University and then moved to Ufa. She is originally from Kusey, a little village hidden in the Ural Mountains. She spent some in the USA, wh ere she studied International Relations, Political

Science and attended photography classes in California. Her dream job is to become a school teacher or a famous photographer but she would settle for a TV presenter’s job.

She entered the competition by participating in one of the online challenges called

“Referrals”. She had to get as many people as possible to register on the “Your Big Year”

website and enter her email address. 6 contestants in a whole with the highest registrations have won a place in the finals, including Leysan.