Talent 2010: The broadcaster, Tulip Mazumdar

(Dominick Tyler)

Tulip Mazumdar's mother chose her name while gazing on the blooming bulb fields during springtime in Lincolnshire. She never imagined at the time that her daughter Tulip, as a young woman, would take herself off to the poppy fields of the Afghan province of Helmand to report on farmers growing flowers for the international drug trade. Now the veteran of three assignments to Afghanistan, Mazumdar has developed a fascination with the Middle East that she hopes will lead to a correspondent's role in the region.

As main presenter for the BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat programme, the 28-year-old must address a young audience of up to 7 million. Her name is also becoming familiar to listeners to the Radio 4 Today programme, where she has done two-ways with John Humphreys and Sarah Montague. Mazumdar has been in front of the television cameras too, for Breakfast and the BBC News Channel, including live reports from Helmand, where she revealed low levels of compensation paid to the families of Afghans killed in the conflict.

Her career began at Liverpool University, making news CDs for the student union bar, and progressed via BBC Radio Merseyside to the news show on the corporation's black music station 1-Xtra. Her ambitions now lie further afield. "Obviously [World Affairs Editor] John Simpson is an old hand at this," she says. "But there aren't many big international female reporters any more."