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Chayya Syal is an award-winning broadcast journalist and blogger who has captivated an international audience with heartfelt posts about her experiences growing up as a British-born, South Asian woman.

After graduating, Chayya undertook various copywriting and journalism internships before she was swiftly recruited by the BBC Asian Network, working as a Broadcast Journalist for a live news programme.

Following this, she joined the BBC Coding Journalism Project. This initiative – teaching journalists to code and create tech solutions – allowed Chayya to tell news stories that address social issues in different and engaging ways. This made her one of the first ever coding journalists at the BBC.

Since then, Chayya has won a Women of the Future 2016 Award, featured in the Forbes 30 under 30 2017 media list as someone driving the world of news, and now hosts expert workshops on blogging and tech. Chayya’s success has seen her invited to Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister and speak about her career in journalism. She also acts as a tech mentor and helped judge the 2018 NASA Space Apps Challenge in London.

As an English Literature student at the University of Reading, Chayya was inspired to start her blog and join the University newspaper as a news editor. Both her writing and breadth of experience helped her to create thought-provoking articles while discovering what life in a newsroom might be like.

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University of Reading

My time at the University of Reading gave me the confidence to share my stories and develop my writing, and I have been overwhelmed with how much interest my words have received. The staff at Reading are extremely knowledgeable and supportive – they want their students to succeed.

Chayya Syal, University of Reading graduate
University of Reading