The historic Government House Ballroom in Western Australia resounded with clever ideas for the future.
Some of Perth’s brightest young professionals have taken centre stage at the inaugural Smart Seeds Showcase on 21 June 2016.
Participating organisations set a number of infrastructure challenges that reflected their industry and evoked creative thinking. With help from industry mentors, five teams had 12 weeks to come up with a solution to each challenge.
In total, 28 young professionals from 12 organisations came together to present fresh solutions to diverse challenges such as traffic congestion, water sensitive design, renewable energy, food security and activated public space.
Faced with a tough challenge, the judging panel made up of Veronica Jefferies (Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority), Richard Mann (Department of Treasury) and Professor Peter Newman (Curtin University) were impressed with the winning team’s response to the challenge of sustainable agriculture in the Peel region of Western Australia.
In response to a drying climate leading to decreased water security, poor soils with high nutrient transport and the high costs of infrastructure, the ‘Fresh Ideas’ team proposed a self-sustaining integrated Greenhouse solution. Their design solution offered a disease free system that reduced the need for pesticides by using in-situ waste water treatment, biogas production, solar power and vertical hydroponics.
The audience, voted the People’s Choice Award to ‘SWIFT’, (Safe, World Class, Integrated, Flexible, Transit) a holistic, comprehensive multi-modal and interconnected transit system. Their idea involved a Public Private Partnership to move Perth’s growing population by connecting people to places, conserving energy, integrating data and lifestyle and providing personal options.
Sheldon Krahe, WA Operating Centre at GHD, says “Smart Seeds provides a platform for collaboration and innovation to flourish. With passion, energy and creativity, all the teams in the inaugural Perth program challenged the norms and devised integrated multidisciplinary solutions that can now be adopted and developed further."
Smart Seeds is a global innovation program for young professionals led by GHD and supported by Engineers Australia, Optus, Veolia and Innovation Interchange.
Engineers Australia has been a national Smart Seeds sponsor for a number of years and in 2016, was the city sponsor of the inaugural Western Australian program.
Main image caption: Inaugural WA Smart Seeds at Government House.
Body image caption: Team members (L-R): Bree Lyons - Department of Water, Kendall Ferraro - GHD, Michael Braccia - Department of Water, Renato Pascucci - Horizon Power, Jonathan Arthurell - Vision Stream / Ventia. Sustainable Agriculture for the Peel Region and James Westcott Engineers Australia 2016 Deputy President and Immediate Past President Francis Norman.
Images supplied by GHD.