News

Ironwoman Harriet Brown has been opening up conversations in schools across the Gold Coast around female athlete health through a series of educational sessions to enhance school sporting excellence programs.

Harriet has been educating talented young sports women from Palm Beach Currumbin State High School, Miami State High School and Robina State High School Sports Academy as part of a wider program aimed at delivering an elite athlete curriculum to sporting excellence students.

Her goal from these sessions is to ensure girls who pursue their sporting dreams can better understand their bodies to support their training, performance and recovery.

Australia’s first sustainable vocational education and training campus has just opened at Robina on the Gold Coast. Contemporary environmental design and construction practices were utilised throughout the building, including 250 solar panels, sensor activated lighting, a rainwater-fed automated irrigation system, as well as recycled materials and ecological finishes.

Speaking at the launch of their fourth Gold Coast campus TAFE Queensland’s Karen Dickenson said the facility was designed from the ground up to be sustainable, including the suppliers and contractors who worked on the project.

“We’ve embedded sustainability into the building, in the construction, in the fit-out and into everything you see around you… even the course curriculum - they all have a story of sustainability. This will be a very memorable and rewarding journey for all the students who choose to study here,” the TAFE Gold Coast General Manager said. 

On 29 February 2020, a Japanese study tour group of one hundred and twenty students were heading home after having had an amazing Gold Coast experience courtesy of Australian International Student Tours (AIST). Sadly, this group would be one of the last to depart our shores before international borders closed the next day.

The bravery of the Australian and Japanese school principals and their students and parents is now evident as we look back in hindsight on the decision to go ahead with the proposed study tour. The students arrived home in Japan the next day in good health and COVID free, however a note from their principal awaited them advising that their school was now closed as the pandemic began to sweep the world.

One of the most enlightening and rewarding experiences through the Mayor’s Student Ambassador Program is with OzHarvest. Students begin the day with an overview of the charity and its origins, and that includes some cold hard facts about food waste and its cost to the community.

The first real eye opener is the amount of food wasted in this country. One in every five grocery bags purchased in Australia ultimately ends up in the bin. That equates to $3,800 worth of groceries wasted per household every year, but not all waste can be solely attributed to consumers. For example, 40% of all bananas grown in Australia are thrown away. Some are discarded at the farm due to cosmetic imperfections and the demands from supermarkets for superior fruit, while others that make it to households are left to become overripe and are then tossed away.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect about food waste is the realisation that it is a major contributor to climate change. It’s estimated that waste is responsible for eight percent of global emissions. 

The Gold Coast’s central business district is about to receive a technological facelift courtesy of a new festival of light, design, installation and performance. Big City Lights* is the latest creation by Placemakers, the same people responsible for Bleach* Festival. 

Essentially the buildings in the Southport CBD will become a giant digital canvas with large scale projections, laneway activations and amazing installations reinterpret the city landscape. Artistic Director Rosie Dennis says that when she moved back to the Gold Coast she began to think about how the city had changed and wanted to create a festival to reflect that.

“When I came back three years ago you see the city with fresh eyes. The city sees itself in an entrepreneurial and when you consider the creative potential. I was thinking I wanted to create something that had a direct relationship with place and how the Gold Coast is developing and changing. Big City Lights* lets us do all of those kinds of things by having a conversation with architecture and design in a playful way.”

Just over a decade ago two brothers had a dream. James and Adam Gilmour wanted to establish a company that could build rockets on the Gold Coast. At the time there was very little to speak of in terms of a space industry in Australia and many doubted that the dream would ever become a reality.

In 2022 the dream is not only a reality, but a thriving enterprise that’s about to launch its first satellite via their hybrid powered propulsion technology. The stellar growth of Gilmour Space Technologies mirrors the space industry domestically, which has literally skyrocketed since the establishment of the Australian Space Agency in 2018.

Through the success of Gilmour Space Technologies a new frontier of career opportunities has opened up on the Gold Coast.

Traditionally the trade industry has been a male domain, but increasingly more females are becoming attracted by the opportunities of developing their physical skills as a creative form of expression. And while it’s not uncommon these days to see a new generation of Australian women working within the trade sector that appeal has now broadened for female international students as well.

In the 2022 Certificate III in Marine Craft Construction course there are three South Korean women enrolled at TAFE’s Coomera Marine campus. Leanna Ha, Younghyun (Young) Kim and Sujin Kim didn’t know each other prior to enrolment, but have become firm friends since starting the course this year. All admit they were surprised to find that they weren’t the only Korean female in their class.

Developing an understanding of local culture, particularly indigenous culture, is one of the primary interests for international students when they come to study here, so it’s no surprise that the opportunity to visit the Jellurgal Aboriginal Cultural Centre was a keenly anticipated experience for our new cohort of Mayor’s Student Ambassadors.

The 2022 Ambassadors are like a microcosm of the wider Gold Coast student community, reflecting a broad base of cultural backgrounds, including German, Filipino, Czech, Chinese, French, Colombian, Greek, Swedish, South African, Brazilian, Korean, Mauritian, and of course Australian. For many of these students this is their first encounter with indigenous Australian culture, so there were many questions for their aboriginal hosts.

The Queensland Academy of Sport has launched its You For 2032 talent identification program in a quest to find and develop champion athletes for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games to be held in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast.

Launching the program at the Gold Coast Sports and Leisure Centre, Stirling Hinchliffe the Queensland Minister for Sport, said:

“The Olympic Games is the world’s biggest event and there will be many, many opportunities for all – if not as an elite athlete, perhaps as an official, a performer, a chef at the athlete’s village, or even a bus driver.”

Study Gold Coast recently launched the third incarnation of its graduate accelerator program Kickstart. This year 28 team members from 15 different employers are taking part in the eight month personal development program. Participants will engage in half-day workshops every three weeks, focusing on building skills that will not only benefit themselves but also their employers.

At the launch employers and graduates who had previously participated in the program shared their experiences of how it had transformed their workplaces while providing essential professional skills for graduates.