News Archive

Indigenous health and wellbeing, and Engineering education, research and investment are the platforms for the two latest - and greatest - UWA websites.

The Poche Centre for Indigenous Health and the EZONE UWA have launched new comprehensive locations for information, education, news and engagement for the University community and the rest of the world.

Late last year, one of Australia's leading philanthropists, Greg Poche and his wife Kay, gave $10 million to UWA to create a WA-based centre for Indigenous health.

The new Poche Centre for Indigenous Health joined centres at Flinders University in Adelaide and the University of Sydney.  Around Australia, the goal of Poche centres is to significantly improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander health and strengthen social, spiritual and emotional wellbeing.

Mr Poche has previously said publicly that "it would be a tragedy to live a privileged, wealthy life without doing good for other people."

Mrs Poche said she and her husband were committed to doing their best for Indigenous Australians.  "Improving the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians is one of our nation's biggest challenges and it is vital that we do everything we can.  Greg and I are determined that the Poche Centres will make a big difference."

Although there have been recent improvements to the health outcomes for Indigenous Australia, more needs to be done to close the gap.  For Indigenous people born between 2005 and 2007, life expectancy was estimated to be 67.2 years for males and 72.9 years for females, around 10-11 years less than non-Indigenous Australians.

The UWA Poche Centre will work with the University's School of Indigenous Studies and Centre for Aboriginal Medical and Dental Health and alongside the Rural Clinical School and Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health - geographically the world's biggest medical school.

The Centre will tackle children's health, disability and developmental outcomes as well as chronic disease.

The other newcomer to the UWA website is the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics' Engineering Zone project ( EZONE UWA ).

The online hub serves as a platform for collaboration and engagement among the project's stakeholders and the wider community.

Director of EZONE UWA Dr Peter Lilly said the website marked a pivotal step towards the vision of creating a revolutionary research, teaching and learning facility that would advance WA's engineering, computing and mathematics capacity.

"We are seeing exciting progress on EZONE UWA with major investments like BHP Billiton's $12 million commitment," he said.

"Visitors to the website can now stay updated on the project's latest developments and learn more about out how to get involved."

EZONE UWA is the key teaching and learning facility of UWA's $400 million New Century Campaign and represents the biggest investment in engineering education in WA's history.

The website includes: the latest updates on the project; acknowledgement and details of partners and investors ;infrastructure plans, concept images and videos; background to the project, including its vision and objectives; and information on how to get involved.