In 2015, PwC developed the 21st Century Minds Accelerator Program to unearth, grow and scale Australia’s best STEM education initiatives. Twenty initiatives, including the National Youth Science Forum, were selected to be involved, and the program has operated throughout 2016. The final program workshops were held in November, prior to presentation pitching events held in Sydney and Melbourne.
These final workshops were facilitated by Education Changemakers, with contributions from The Difference Social Impact team and The School of Life, and allowed the initiatives one last formal opportunity to engage with each other, and consider possibilities for further collaboration.
“The PwC 21C Minds program has been an extremely valuable experience for the NYSF,” said CEO, Dr Damien Pearce. “It has allowed us to fast-track some of the development work we had already been undertaking, and in addition, it offered insights into the activities of other groups working the STEM arena, who we might be able to work with collaboratively in the future.”
Working with the PwC Canberra Mentors
Working with the PwC 21C Minds Mentors
“But perhaps most importantly, the support from the PwC Canberra mentor team, led by Ken Maxwell, has provided us with some clear directions for our future business development activities, and for some of our processes. We cannot emphasise how important accessing this support has been for us at this critical time in the public STEM discourse.”
PwC will be working with two of the 21CM initiatives in 2017 to further their development objectives.