Wow!  What a huge honour!  I flew overseas in the wee hours of 27 January, and so the whole experience of being named Young Australian of the Year is just beginning to sink in.  I'm still very excited and in disbelief - it feels like a dream!

I feel completely honoured to have been given this privilege of being the Young Australian of the Year for 2012.  I'm currently on my Churchill Fellowship, (which is a grant that is giving me the opportunity to study organisations similar to Robogals overseas), so I flew back to Australia from Portugal for 2.5 days for the Australia Day Awards Ceremony.  The 2.5 days I was in Australia were quite surreal.  I got to meet and know the other finalists before the Awards Ceremony through a BBQ dinner on the Governor General's lawn the night before, and then a morning tea at the Prime Minister's House on the morning of 25 January.  I especially enjoyed hearing about the work that Senior Australian of the Year 2012 Recipient, Laurie Baymarrwangga does.  Unfortunately, as Laurie is 95 and was feeling a bit sick, she couldn't make it, and two representatives were sent on her behalf.  It was so interesting to learn about Laurie's story and the work that she has been doing of protecting and preserving her culture.  An amazing inspiration.  I know when I'm 95, i want to look back and say, "I dedicated my life to improving the world and I gave it my all."  I hope I get to visit the Crocodile Islands and learn more about her culture.

I also really enjoyed meeting all the other Young Australian of the Year finalists.  They're all such nice people and are contributing so much to society.  I love the work Greg Irons has been doing in Tasmania, looking after Australia's unique fauna, I am inspired by David Pocock from Western Australia's work in giving back to his motherland Zimbabwe (while being an amazing footballer), and Rebecca Healy from Northern Territory for her personal strength in overcoming the challenges life threw at her and giving back in such a powerful way.  Rebecca is so lovely!  (Both Rebecca's were!)  The Young Australia of the Year finalists are a remarkable bunch and I feel honoured to know them.

Companies, organisations or anything that creates an impact is never achieved alone but is always the product of focused collaboration towards a common goal.  To that end, Robogals, which operates at 17 chapters in 6 countries would never have been able to get to where it is today without the thoughtful, dedicated and passionate work of its many volunteers, 100+ executive committee members across all the chapters, the Global team and all those in the Robogals community.  I am so proud of Robogals for what we have achieved and I am so lucky to work with so many talented individuals.  Go team!  :)

I intend to use this year and my title to highlight the topics of women in engineering, innovation and entrepreneurship.

 

Women in engineering

Less than 10% of engineers in Australia are female, and only 14% of engineering students are female.  As well as this striking gender imbalance, there is also a shortage of engineering graduates to fill the available jobs.  More worryingly though, the number of students taking up the harder maths and physics disciplines in the senior years of high school is declining.  In order to see these numbers change direction, we all need to work together.

Schools can establish robotics programmes so that our kids will not just be consumers of technology, but also creators of technology.  Through robotics, theories learnt in maths and physics can be shown in the real world to enhance learning of key concepts.

Changing these numbers won't happen overnight, but if we focus our attention on this issue, then we will be able to have girls and boys see engineering as something that is creative, logical, world-changing, and something they would like to be a part of.

Through research done on my Churchill Fellowship (my research topic is "strategies to get girls interested in science, engineering and technology"), I've encountered some really cool ideas of dealing with this issue.  I'll be writing a thesis about the topic upon my return to Australia in March, and then planning the implementation of all those ideas shortly afterwards.

 

Innovation

Innovation is a hard thing to define.  But to me, it's knowing there is no perfect solution, but that better solutions can always be found.  Having said that, it's important to ship.  So innovation is a process.

I'm all for supporting having a show like the ABC's New Inventors return to air in Australia.  The show each week shone a spotlight on innovations coming out of Australia, giving inventors free marketing, credibility and a platform for them to connect with like-minded people.  If we want to create a nation of creators, then we need to celebrate them in the media!

Through my short stint on the New Inventors last year, I got to meet some of the nation's most enthusiastic inventors!  For example, after the New Inventors Grand Final, I hung out with one of the grand finalists, Flexipole, until I had to take my early morning flight back home to Melbourne.  Flexipole is a really awesome company and I'm really inspired by their determination and perseverance, but they said they were having a lot of trouble getting it off the ground because it's difficult to run that kind of innovative company in Australia.  As someone who wants to start up that kind of company in Australia, I found it very disheartening to hear.

The New Inventors cultivated a community of inventors and manufacturing entrepreneurs.  As the lovely Sally Dominguez, a popular New Inventors panellist put it, "that show brings together the most interesting people.  Where will they meet now?"

 

Entrepreneurship

I'm interested in fostering entrepreneurship in Australia, particularly Melbourne, because I want to see a cultural change.  I think we need the entrepreneurial mindset, of being creators, to further create a world-class city.

Innovation without application is of no use to anyone.  Once innovations are created, we need to get them into the marketplace, and entrepreneurship is how we do that.

Culturally, we need to make it okay for people in Australia to choose entrepreneurship as a career.

And practically, I think the method used in the "Startup Chile" programme centred around a central location (say the city of Melbourne) where the government simply gives enormous grants to would-be entrepreneurs to do their thing is the fastest way to make a bold statement about our nation's commitment towards entrepreneurship.

 

Thank you so much for all the kind messages of support I've received so far.  It really means a lot to me!  This year is going to be one crazy roller coaster, but I'm going to hang on and make sure I have heaps of fun.  :)