Australian of the Year Awards 60th anniversary

Published: Monday, 20 July 2020

My last, large, in-person networking event I went to in Australia since before the pandemic was the 60th anniversary celebrations for the Australian of the Year awards in Canberra on 25 January. We had a luncheon at the National Gallery of Australia, where three previous Australian of the Year Award winners were interviewed.

 

Then we had the Awards Ceremony at the National Arboretum Canberra.  To celebrate the 60th-year occasion, they invited all the previous Australian of the Year winners to the stage to celebrate. It was totally epic to see 10+ previous Australian of the Year Award winners take to the stage!

National Arboretum Canberra

It was great to meet Aussie maths teacher Eddie Woo and all-time swimming legend Dawn Fraser.


The legend Dawn Fraser

Ash Barty was named Young Australian of the Year remotely in Melbourne. Former Young Australian of the Year Pat Rafter presented her trophy in person. She then went and played tennis the next night in the Australian Open - and won! Amazing! She later on went and became the semi-finalist for the Australian Open that week!

Socializing and seeing other people seems like a long, long, long, long, long, long time ago now.

Here’s some cute dog photos from the dog park from before Covid, to make you smile. :)  (Note: not my dogs!)

About Me

Marita ChengForbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.

I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • Cool enough

    I find that many people my age are quite lost.  They don't know what to do with their lives, they don't know what their dream job is, they don't know...

  • Clarity in thought

    Clear away some space and time for yourself. Without the pressure of someone bursting in and occupying your space. By giving yourself the time and...

  • Where are you not looking?

    You’ve brainstormed and tried all the keywords that you could think of in Google, you’ve asked Jeeves, you’ve spoken to your lecturers and you’ve...

  • Complaining is silly

    Either act, or forget. Talking about someone else behind their back makes no difference to them, and all the difference to you. Your friends have to...

  • The Impostor Syndrome

    I first learnt about the impostor syndrome at the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing in 2011.  A Stanford student asked a question...

  • Virtual gigs

    I’ve been giving a lot of virtual speaking gigs recently, so I created this short video to give a glimpse at what my virtual speeches are like.

  • The Year of a Young Australian of the Year

    In 2008, I founded Robogals as a response to there being hardly any other women in my engineering classes. Our organisation is run by university...

  • In the news: Entrepreneurship in Australian universities

    My business partner Mark Parncutt was quoted in this article in StartUp Smart about the state of entrepreneurship in Australian universities.  Happy...

  • A Tech Schools Update

    A building collapse warning system, a pancreatic cancer detection kit and a self-inflating shirt to stop young children drowning if they fall into a...

  • I'm a blogger... again!

    For those of you who know me from a few years back, I started up a blog in January 2009 (I think?), blogged everyday for like 2 months straight,...