A leadership program for younger businesspeople, developed by HunterNet, has resulted in the development of four feasible concepts to build the growth and prosperity of the Hunter region.

The winners of the HunterNet Future Leaders Program were announced on Friday, 13 November 2015 at the HunterNet Future Leaders inaugural Gala Dinner.

After the judges deliberated over four concepts the winner was announced as T3 Awaken the Hunter, for their innovative concept, The National Engineering, Research & Design Centre (The NERD Centre).

The NERD Centre concept has been designed to position the Hunter Region as the Asia Pacific’s premier hub for engineering, research and design. The concept will house the Asia Pacific Regions most intelligent engineering talents and will provide an incubation style platform to create optimum conditions for efficient innovation, enabling engineering businesses to thrive both locally and internationally.

The team was mentored by Neill Bell, Manager Operations, Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group and consisted of:

• Kristy Hedley, Market Development Manager, Hedweld Group of Companies
• Adrian Mannel, Senior Accountant, H&M Accountants
• Rick Evans, Training Advisor, NSW Department of Industry, State Training Services
• Callan Boslem, Mechatronics Engineer, Quarry Mining
• Mark McClean, Marketing Manager, Forgacs Engineering

Neill Bell said that the NERD Centre concept would accelerate the growth of engineering businesses across the Asia Pacific at all stages of their lifecycle development.

“The concept is the first of its kind in Australia and is being positioned to be developed in tandem with industry, government and education,” Neill said. “It will be a place where global thought leaders of engineering and design work in partnership with start-up entrepreneurs, established SME’s, world-class multinational R&D offices, industry incubators, education and government.”

The three other concepts included

• Energy Storage Alliance, which set out to create a sustainable research and development hot spot for the commercialisation of energy storage solutions in the Hunter and as a platform for growth to develop towards global significance.
• Bright Sparks, which set out to establish the Hunter Region as the global benchmark for renewable energy knowledge, technology, development, and implementation.
• Team Green, which set out to position the Hunter Region as the pioneer leading Australia towards Zero Waste through investment in driving consumer and industry cultural change, increasing the capacity of the regions capability to process and recycled waste and create new markets using recycled materials.

In establishing the program HunterNet focused on combining the strengths of both the academic and professional application of leadership in industry.

“Our goal was to connect program participants with the best practitioners and leaders from within the Hunter Region and beyond and provide them with a platform on which to build their own leadership self -awareness and identity,” Program Director, Karl Putnis, said.

In addition to the project the HunterNet Future Leaders Program involved 10 sessions with leadership topics delivered by professionals in their field. The topics and presenters included

• Communication and Engagement, Ed Riley from Max Sam
• Networking‚ Heidi Alexander Pollard from UQ Power
• Leadership‚ Äì Wayne Pearce from Wayne Pearce Advantage
• Managing Cultural Change‚ Äì Steve Tolley from Downer
• Strategic Planning – Ed Riley from Max Sam
• Accessing Global Markets, Dr Anton Kriz from the University of Newcastle & Ryan Stevenson from Bohemia Interactive Simulations
• Negotiation 1, Randal Tame from Influence Consulting
• Finance & Funding‚ Andrew Jones from PKF
• Negotiation 1 – Randal Tame from Influence Consulting
• Teamwork – Wayne Pearce from Wayne Pearce Advantage

Image | Awaken the Hunter – HunterNet Future Leaders winning team 2015, Rick Evans, Adrian Mannel, Neill Bell, Kristy Hedley, Mark McClean, Callan Boslem