Becoming the best in their fields is the aim of three Dunedin residents who received $10,000 AMP scholarships this week.
At an awards ceremony on Thursday, 15 people were awarded the scholarship, including netball umpire Jono Bredin, adaptive alpine skier Adam Hall and art conservator Genevieve Silvester.
Bredin wanted to gain his full international umpire's accreditation, which could include attending a few Silver Ferns training camps as an officiator.
He said it had been a "step up" umpiring in the transtasman ANZ championships and the New Zealand national championships this year.
"I am determined to become an international umpire, but I am still young so there's no rush to realise the goal immediately. Basically, I want to be the best I can be in the role," he said.
Adaptive alpine skier Adam Hall, who was born with spina bifida, hoped to use the money for travel and equipment expenses to help his 2010 Paralympics campaign.
Hall, a member of the New Zealand Disabled Ski Team since 2005, won a gold medal at the 2008 World Cup meet at France.
Art conservator Genevieve Silvester is living in London and was unable to attend the awards.
She was one of only five people accepted for next year's course at the Courtauld Institute in London next year. She hoped to use the money to further her studies in the field of art conservation.
