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While UWA has launched an initiative to crowdfund and crowdsource research projects, a UWA graduate is pinning her hopes for the future on a similar social media campaign.

Georgie Higgins completed her Bachelor of Arts and a postgraduate degree in Education in 2010.  She was eager to get into the classroom, to inspire the next generation.

But Georgie turned up at her graduation ceremony in March 2011 in a wheelchair.  Soon after finishing her final exams in 2010, she had contracted Lyme disease, a debilitating illness which has wreaked havoc on her life and prevented her from working or studying for the past four years.

You can meet Georgie here and read more about Lyme disease and her hopes for a cure.

After unsuccessfully trying many treatments and therapies, Georgie has the opportunity of going to Germany for a new treatment, which has a high success rate for chronic Lyme disease patients.

She has raised almost 90 per cent of the $16,000 needed and we hope that UWA staff will help Georgie to reach her target, so she can come home, recover, then put her UWA degrees to work.

Her friend Katie Huston said Georgie still needed to raise around $1,000.

"But any more raised above and beyond that will really help ease the financial burden on her family, who are planning to pay for half the treatment (on top of $55,000 already spent on medical bills)," she said.

"Any support from the UWA community will make a huge difference and mean so much to her."

If you would like to help Georgie, you can donate here .