Tenzin Crouch StudIEAust has won South Australia’s prestigious Craig Gilbert Leadership Award, sponsored by Tonkin Consulting, at The Honourable Sir Eric Neal Address.
Presented annually to a South Australian engineering student, the Craig Gilbert Leadership Award recognises a student who, upon completing their penultimate year of their degree has demonstrated the most outstanding self-discipline, practical engineering ability, interpersonal skills, and leadership potential amongst their peers.
“It was a great honour to receive the recognition of the Craig Gilbert Leadership Award. It is very motivating to know that my peers value the dedication, enthusiasm and expectations that I bring to student project leadership at University,” said Tenzin when commenting on what receiving this award meant to him.
The Honourable Sir Eric Neal Address had a leadership theme, with Dr Tom Chau PEng PhD, a biomedical engineer of the Holland Bloorview Kid Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto, Canada, presenting on the impact of engineers on the community at large and the leadership they must display. Engaging and inspiring the next generation of engineering leaders, Dr Chau’s presentation resonated with Tenzin.
“I believe that Tom’s presentation demonstrated leadership skills such as inspiration, dedication and the ability to transfer knowledge. Although he didn’t mention it, Tom must use these skills to inspire and motivate a team of doctors and engineers to realise his vision of innovative engineering solutions which support people with disabilities.
“The most inspiring thing about his presentation was the way he was able to connect and share his vision with the diverse range of people present. This is an essential skill for a great leader and something I want to develop further myself,” said Tenzin.
Tenzin is passionate about encouraging students to study STEM subjects and engineering in university, “Studying engineering has been a challenging and rewarding experience for me and I believe the best advice any potential student can receive is to study what you are passionate about, not only what pays the most!”
Tenzin continued to say that from a young age he wanted to know how thing worked, “I had thought to study computer science but after I first built a quadrotor helicopter in 2011 I realised that my true passion was robotics. I always knew I would study some form of engineering because of my drive to understand things but I chose robotics because it is exciting and inspiring to be able to work in a multidisciplinary field with a huge, untapped potential.”
Image caption (L-R): Craig Gilbert Leadership Award winner Tenzin Crouch, Craig Gilbert's son Dale Gilbert presenting the award in his honour and 2016 South Australia President Niki Robinson.