During the lead-up to the UCD Festival in May, UCD Alumni Relations organised a virtual Global Perspectives series with alumni around the world. This eight-episode fringe festival launched in the two weeks leading up to the Festival with interview-style events in Canada, Germany, UK, US, Australia, India, France and China and attracted over 600 alumni and prospective students. The series began with Ireland and Germany’s Cultural Connection & Beyond with HE Delke Poztel, German Ambassador to Ireland and continued with reporter and journalist Amanda Coakley, hosted by UCD Alumni Chapter Representative for the UK, David O’Reilly.
- The GAA in the USA event featured sports reporter Kara Kelly, Mark Duncan, Director of GAA Oral History project, Century Ireland and Larry McCarthy, President of the GAA.
- Beyond Ireland – Irish on the World Stage took place with translator Paula Níc Cíonnaith, Hugh Carr, social media coordinator for BLOC TG4 and Ciaran MacGuill, the UCD Alumni Chapter Representative for France.
- Caroline Mangan, UCD Global and Sinita Kaistha, founder of SWL, presented the UCDVO: Connecting Communities from Delhi to Dublin event.
- Project Optimism with a vision to help spread optimism worldwide featured Victor Perton, Jenny Boymal and Nóirín Mosley.
- The final event in the Global Perspectives 2021 series was themed Chinese Alumni in Conversation with Kelly Fitzgerald, Head of Irish Folklore & Ethnology, School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore, Wendy He, Senior Business architect with StartDT and Kai Song, certified information systems auditor.