Program boosts Indigenous aspiration in engineering and IT

With a new Mission Australia report showing a lack of awareness of opportunities can limit aspirations among Indigenous youth, programs like the UTS Galuwa Experience are providing an antidote.

Recently 28 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander high schoolers from across regional Queensland and NSW travelled to the UTS City campus to participate in a series of practical science, technology, engineering and mathematics workshops.

The Galuwa Experience program, led by the Faculty of Engineering and IT in conjunction with Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, brings together young Indigenous students with a natural aptitude for maths, creative thinking and problem solving who are as yet unsure of which career path to follow.

The students, whose travel and education expenses were fully sponsored by the program, discovered what it's like to study engineering and IT, real pathways into further education and the exciting opportunities that exist for Indigenous people in these diverse and ever-changing industries.

"The Galuwa Experience really impacted my thoughts for my own future and what I can really achieve for myself and for my younger relatives," said Jahryah Hart from Queensland's Innisfail State College. "The whole experience has really pushed me towards understanding a future career that I'd love to be part of."

As part of the five-day program participants had the opportunity to hear directly from industry professionals. Program partners, automation technology leader ABB, the ABC and the Powerhouse Museum, showcased the latest technology and industry devices, while engineering firm Aurecon, ABB and Lend Lease offered opportunities to network with industry leaders.

"The Galuwa Experience was an amazing program," said Liam Begnell from Wadalba Community School. "Going on site and seeing what an engineer does from day to day was really insightful. It's only reinforced my desire to become an engineer. I would tell any Indigenous person wanting to become an engineer to do this program."

While on campus, participants engaged in creative problem-solving activities such as building load-bearing bridges made of spaghetti and establishing miniature floating houses in response to humanitarian needs. They also set up small information technology networks and were exposed to the interesting realm of biomedical engineering.

Teachers were also invited to attend separate workshops where they were presented with hands-on activities and associated resources for use in their classrooms.

Next year Program Manager Maritza Messina hopes to expand the Galuwa Experience even further to include opportunities for work experience with the sponsoring companies.

"The Galuwa program allows us to give students and teachers a real understanding of studying engineering and IT and the opportunities these fields can lead them to," she said. "Two participants from last year's program have now enrolled at UTS. We hope to see this year's students enrol, but also that the connections participants made with industry translate into internships during the student's studies and then eventually into an offer of employment."