- Home
- About veski
- veski board
- veski innovation fellows
- Timothy Scott
- Benjamin Marsland
- Pierluigi Mancarella
- Vihandha Wickramasinghe
- Jon Shah
- Roger Pocock
- Richard Sandberg
- Colby Zaph
- Kenneth Crozier
- Ethan Goddard-Borger
- Colette McKay
- Luke Connal
- Mark Dawson
- Cameron Simmons
- Tiffany Walsh
- Seth Masters
- Christopher McNeill
- Matthew Call
- Edwin van Leeuwen
- Mark Shackleton
- Ross Dickins
- Ygal Haupt
- Sarah Hosking
- Michael Cowley
- Alyssa Barry
- Gareth Forde
- Marcus Pandy
- Andrew Holmes
- veski fellows
- organisational structure
- veski annual review
- veski impacts
- veski standard
- veski pin
- Contact us
- veski foundation
- Fellowships
- Programs
- News & Events
- News
- Events
- Galleries
- Newsletters
- in conversation
- veski twitter
- veski family in the media
- veski's portraits of innovation
- A banquet of problems to be solved
- A novel approach
- A very special challenge
- At the crossroad of sport and science
- Engineering a better quality of life
- Everything at her fingertips
- Forward propulsion
- Going to the ends of the earth to cure melanoma
- His link to the past and bridge to the future
- Hitting the right note
- Holding up his side of the bargain
- Lighting the way to better child cancer outcomes
- Links and reconnections
- Mining his talent to make a difference
- Putting Melbourne's science on the global stage
- Ready, set, go: the future of locomotion
- Setting his own path
- Springboarding into a slam-dunk for science
- The lens of experience
- Where dreams are made
- veski videos
- People
- veski board
- veski innovation fellows
- Timothy Scott
- Benjamin Marsland
- Pierluigi Mancarella
- Vihandha Wickramasinghe
- Jon Shah
- Roger Pocock
- Richard Sandberg
- Colby Zaph
- Kenneth Crozier
- Ethan Goddard-Borger
- Colette McKay
- Luke Connal
- Mark Dawson
- Cameron Simmons
- Tiffany Walsh
- Seth Masters
- Christopher McNeill
- Matthew Call
- Edwin van Leeuwen
- Mark Shackleton
- Ross Dickins
- Ygal Haupt
- Sarah Hosking
- Michael Cowley
- Alyssa Barry
- Gareth Forde
- Marcus Pandy
- Andrew Holmes
- Victoria Prize recipients
- Victoria Fellows
- veski sustainable agriculture fellows
- veski inspiring women fellows
- veski connection
- PAHMR recipients
Inspiring women: “an everyone issue”

A 200-strong crowd of women, men – and even a baby - from science, industry and government gathered in Melbourne this week as part of the veski inspiring women program and agreed supporting women in, and removing barriers to their career progression was an issue for everyone; not just women.
Read the tweets by @veskiorg & other attendees from the #veski session
The inaugural veski inspiring women professional development & networking event, held on Monday, 8 December 2014, is part of a quarterly series of events planned for 2015.
The call for men and women to support the inspiring women program was highlighted with one of four panelists Professor Bob Williamson AO saying “gender equity isn’t a women’s issue; it’s an everyone issue.”
veski chief executive officer, Ms Julia L Page, added to the call by encouraging all attendees to bring a male guest to the next event, and asking them to help promote the event across industry and other sectors.
“If every attendee brings a male friend or colleague to the next event, this will ensure more organisations across Victoria are in the picture,” Ms Page said.
The event included a keynote video presentation from Professor Sharon Bell, Deputy Vice Chancellor from the Charles Darwin University, in which she outlined her findings from her research project into “women in the science research workforce”.
Professor Bell described the difference between the way men and women approach their careers as being similar to the difference between marathon runners and sprinters.
“Many professions, including the sciences, are geared to the runners rather than the sprinters”, Bell said.
“The challenge that now faces the sector is whether we are ready to move from strategies that accommodate women who want to sprint like their male colleagues to rather moving to strategies that recognise there is value in diversity and that the marathon runner, the person who is running a different race with similar goals but running at a different pace can be accommodated equally successfully”.
An interactive poll at the event revealed more than 80 per cent agreed that a female career in scientific research was like a marathon rather than a sprint.
The panel presentations and discussions provided some insights from the personal experiences of the speakers with key themes including the need to make strategic career choices, the power of a supportive network, and the importance of self promotion.
Two emerging leaders, Dr Natalie Hannan and Dr Tu’uhevaha Kaitu’u-Lino, who work together at the Mercy Hospital and the University of Melbourne, shared their personal experiences as women working in scientific fields.
Dr Hannan talked about the challenges she faced when detailing her career interruption and the bias that exists, and Dr Kaitu’u-Lino described the importance of mentors and a ‘support team’.
Representing an alternative career path, which is a key part of the veski inspiring women program, Dr Jane Fisher who is the Immunology Medical Manager, UCB Australia, talked about the need to drive your own career, be committed and have a thick skin.
In addition to a session of inspiring speakers, there was a surprise for two attendees who received an inspiring coaching session from veski collaborator insium, which provides the lucky recipients with an opportunity to work on their career plans and goals.
At the end of the event, an interstate attendee who was in town from Adelaide said she had been to an event like this thirty years ago and was expecting a couple of dozen women and was delighted to see hundreds of women in the room, no longer afraid to talk about the issues.
veski connection members in the news
Apr 2020 | Royal Society
Prof Jane Visavader, 2018 Victoria Prize for Science & Innovation recipient, elected to the Royal Societyin 2020
“The real benefit of increasing fabrication rates is the transition from prototyping, making one offs, to actually going into production.”
Assoc Prof Timothy Scott
Nov 2019 | Bionics Institute
Dr Thushara Perera, 2016 Victoria Fellow, received the prestigious AMP Foundation’s Tomorrow Fund
Tweets from @veskiorg
Tweets by @veskiorg