Dear Colleagues

Welcome to our November Newsletter, 

I would like to start by thanking our longstanding CEO and Country Leader Judy Howard for her immense contribution to Enactus Australia over the past 22 years. Judy was appointed to our board from Woolworths 11 years before taking over the role of CEO and Country Leader in 2010. Judy has been Instrumental in her involvement in Enactus over the two decades which has impacted the lives of thousands of students, faculty advisors and work colleagues.  We thank Judy for her service and contribution during her time and wish her the best for her retirement.

We had a small dinner on the 4th of November to celebrate Judy and what she has achieved over the years.

Enactus International also acknowledged Judy's enormous contribution over the years at the closing ceremony at the Enactus World Cup on the 21st of October.  Judy received the prestigious Legacy Award which has only ever been reived by three others in the organisation.  The Legacy Award, is the highest honour for an Enactus employee. 

We have attached the link to the video from the closing ceremony acknowledging Judy's contribution. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gk9z3l28o153re2/D4_03%20Legacy%20Award%20JUDY%20HOWARD.mp4?dl=0

I would also like to also welcome our new CEO and Country Leader, Selena Griffith.  Selena is a Designer, Educator, and Facilitator with extensive experience delivering innovation in Business, Government, Tertiary and Third Sector contexts. She leverages design thinking and management to support Sustainability, Social Impact, Innovation and Entrepreneurship; and has authored books on Collaboration, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship.

Selena brings a wealth of experience in small business, start-up, social enterprise, and has worked as FA with an Enactus team for the past 10 years. So welcome Selena. We look forward to working closely with you in the months to come. 

This year’s Enactus World Cup was held online again, with a range of different events and activities throughout the week. Our congratulations go to the winning team Egypt, from October 6 University, for a very well deserved win in this year’s competition. We would also like to congratulate the runners up Canada from Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, and all the teams who participated and delivered projects despite the challenges we all faced this year.  It is a credit to all the teams who continue to grow their projects to create a better world for us during these challenging times.

A big congratulations to our 2021 National Champions, University of New South Wales, who represented Australia brilliantly at this year's World Cup event. Their project video presentation was very well received and had some great comments and praise from judges across the world. We really look forward to seeing the projects grow over the next 12 months.

We would also like to thank Josh Rao for his contribution on the Enactus Australia Board over the past two years. He is leaving the board to start a new role. We wish him all the best. Josh has contributed greatly to the board and always helped as a Business Advisor and Judge at our Regional and National events. He also contributed greatly to many University teams in Sydney through involvement with their Business Advisory Boards.

Thank you to all of our stakeholders for your on-going support of the program here in Australia. We appreciate what you do to help create a better more sustainable world. 

As we head into the end of another challenging year we ask you to consider that we are a small Not for Profit with a very big job to do, and as such we would welcome your financial support through the rest of the year leading into 2022.

We appreciate any support no matter how big or small. It all makes a difference. All donations over $2.00 are tax deductible. 

To make a donation to Enactus Australia please visit our webpage https://www.enactusaustralia.org.au/donations, you may also consider promoting ENACTUS as a corporate giving recipient within your organisation.

Over the past few weeks, as I start in this role. I have had the pleasure of connecting with all our teams and faculty advisors. It has been inspiring hearing the stories of their projects and progress over the past year and the excitement about returning to campus as we emerge from COVID. Congratulations to everyone for developing creative solutions to the challenge of keeping connected and active through COVID. I look forward to your energies now turning to recruiting new members, developing new projects and contributing to the collective impact Enactus teams deliver globally.

Events and Happenings, World Cup.

The major news, since our last newsletter, has been of course the change of leadership within the organisation with the appointment of a new Global President and CEO, Robyn S. Fehman. I have met with Robyn and am excited about the skills and knowledge she brings to the role and the vision she has shared for Enactus Global and look forward to working with her to build that vision here in Australia.

World Cup 14-21 October 

The Enactus World Cup  was held online  from 14-21 October 2021. This format has allowed many more people, from all over the world to engage with the event. 

The theme this year was ‘passion on purpose’ focusing on students and their purpose driven passion to make a better world for us all . 

It was a busy agenda that offered many topics and interactive forums catering to participants and observers from across the Enactus network including business leaders, students, academics, Enactus staff,  alumni, family and friends. The agenda included POP Plenary Session- Welcome, Student Alumni Lounge, 77 Second Film Festival, Next Gen experience - Early Stage Projects, Opening Round of Competition, One Race 4 Oceans Forum, POP Plenary session -CEO Fireside Conversations and Meet the Teams, Food for the Planet , Race for Climate Action Competition, Next Gen Experience Power of Partnerships, Top 16 Round of Competition, Race for Climate Action Forum, Economic Inclusion through Entrepreneurial Action, Alumni Fast Pitch, Race to Rethink Plastic Competition, Conversations with the Top 16, Final 4 announcement, Race to Rethink Plastic Forum,  EWC Final Round , Races Winners Circle and the Closing Ceremony.

All these sessions, resources, and action of the World Cup are available to access until the 21st of  November. 

http://enactus.org/worldcup

The Closing Ceremony was particularly special for us as the prestigious Legacy Award was given to our outgoing CEO, Judy Howard, for her amazing contribution to Enactus locally and globally

Congratulations to UNSW for their participation as our 2021 Australian representative team.. 

Congratulations also to one of  our new teams, Monash University,  who featured in the World Cup Early Stage Project presentation with Jess Creighton and Raghav Sharma talking about their new project on Textile Waste.  Their video presentation is available until November 21. https://events.bizzabo.com/ewc2021/agenda/session/549422

The competition itself was of course the “main event” and some amazing projects were presented to hundreds of judges from around the world, 

Here in Australia we had some wonderful involvement including:

* UNSW Representing Australia in the World Cup with their two projects CircEx and QuickSan

* Several Judges from Australia participating in the Judging from the Opening round to the Final round of competition.

* Kylie Smith managed all the scoring for all Rounds of Competition and the Global Races.

*  Monash University featured in the Early Stage Project Presentations

Well done all! We All Win!

Support our Projects  - Christmas Gifts 

Enactus Australia has created a new page on our website to showcase and add projects that have products available to the public to purchase.   There are some great ideas for Christmas gifts and we would love to see you support our teams. We will also be featuring these projects and products on our LinkedIn page over the coming weeks. To view these great ideas just click on the link below.

https://www.enactusaustralia.org.au/support-our-projects 

Enactus World Cup 14-21 October  2021

The main event for the students for this quarter was the Enactus World Cup.

Our National Champions,  University of New South Wales, represented Australia showcasing their CircEx and QuickSan projects,  to judges from all over the world, receiving very positive feedback.   Although these projects are still in early stages they have huge potential for growth. We can’t wait to see what UNSW will achieve with them in the next year.  Congratulations UNSW and thank you for all your hard work preparing for, and attending the world Cup.   

Having this event online again was a great opportunity for all our students from all universities in Australia to join in and participate in some of the sessions.

EY Events -  21 & 22 September 

In September we  were very pleased to partner with EY on the Enactus/ EY Global Mentoring Program which was launched last year.  EY hosted two local events for our Enactus students to highlight the benefits both personally and professionally of having a mentor throughout University and your Career. 

One event was held in person at the EY office in Perth with staff from EY  speaking about entrepreneurship within EY and of course to promote the global mentoring program.  Our student Naomi Cha from UWA participated in our pilot program last year spoke to other students about the program at this live event, whilst Muskan Jain, the new president from USYD, spoke to a large online audience highlighting the benefits of the program. Both Naomi and Muskan could not speak more highly of the program and how it has benefited them. 

Both events were very successful with over 90 students attending the online event and 25 the Perth event. Over 40 students have signed up to the program for 2022. Our thanks to our partners at EY for hosting these events, highlighting what entrepreneurship looks like, and its importance working in an organisation such as EY.   

ECU Sustainability Festival  

Enactus ECU is proud to announce that their recent Sustainability Festival was a great success!

On 25th and 26th of September 2021, the ECU team presented the first Sustainability Festival at Hillary’s Boat Harbour. ECU worked hard to present an event incorporating almost all the 17 UNSDGs (the Sustainability Development Goals). ECU's idea was to provide a space to showcase projects already in place, demonstrating to  the community what has been done, what they can do, and how they can get involved in activities and actions towards a more sustainable future.

ECU want to thank their sponsors who were instrumental to their event being a success – City of Joondalup, ECU Student Guild and Hillarys Boardwalk-Hillarys Boat Harbour for their incredible financial and in kind support. ECU also want to thank all the exhibitors for their amazing contributions. 

WA Forest Alliance, FISH - Foundation for Indigenous Sustainable Health, Microplastix, The Hub on SX, Sea Shepherd Australia, Engineers Australia, ECU School of Engineering, Second Bite, CARAD - Centre for Asylum Seekers, Refugees, and Detainees, Solar Dwellings, United Nations Association of Australia (WA), No Limits Perth Empowering Chicks, Recycle InTent, Fortuna Foundation, Lessen with Peg, Bunnings Warehouse Mindarie and Joondalup, ECU Nutrition Hub, ECU Institute for Nutrition Research, ECU Centre for People, Place and Planet, Urban Revolution, Extinction Rebellion and KINOI.

These exhibitors overwhelmingly reported that they were able to influence attendees to consider adopting one or more sustainable practice through showcasing their own activities.

Also, thanks to  West Coast Eagles, ESRAG - Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group WA Power, Water Corporation, and Caitlin Collins MLA who kindly supported this festival. 

In addition to this,  Enactus ECU were lucky to have a variety of students from different undergraduate and post graduate courses at Edith Cowan University in their team. Working with the Enactus ECU team demonstrates how students from different backgrounds can work collaboratively with a diversity of stakeholders and build their skills to make a difference to people and the planet.

ECU are extremely thankful to the dignitaries who opened this year’s festival, Sharon Wood-Kenney, Founder/Executive Manager of Djinda Bridiya Wellbeing Australian Aboriginal Foundation who with a moving Welcome to Country urged us to heal country, Mayor of Joondalup Albert Jacob, who shared with us sustainability initiatives the City is undertaking and Professor Arshad Omari, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor ECU and Enactus Regional Coordinator who shared ECU’s commitment to a sustainable future.

The team from ECU are already planning for the Sustainability Festival 2022, and look forward to growing their impact next year!!

Enactus Australia 2022 

Congratulations to all the teams who have held their AGMs and elected their new management positions for 2021/22, and thank you to the outgoing teams’ executives for all their great work and contribution during another difficult year.  A copy of the new team handbook has been added to our webpage and is now available to all team for the 2022 academic year.

We will be holding our regional showcases next year helping teams showcase their projects before the National Competition in July.

Enactus International  

We would like to wish a warm welcome to Robyn S Fehrman, as the new CEO for Enactus International.  We really look forward to working closely with you over the coming months as you transition into the role.