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A biofabrication course envisaged by 17-year-old Brazilian student Matheus Saueressig has won The University of Western Australia’s Pitch the Course of the Future competition.

The Pitch the Course of the Future competition invited people from around the world to submit a two minute video outlining their thoughts for a new course at UWA.

Matheus’ winning entry has earned him $10,000 to travel anywhere in the world to research his course idea. He will then visit Perth to pitch his refined idea to UWA Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Johnson.

The judging panel included Professor Johnson, US futurist, inventor and writer Mark Pesce, former WA chief scientist Professor Lyn Beazley, Perth Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi and Singapore-based architect Johnny Tan.

UWA Chief Marketing Officer Karen Carriero said it was a tough job for the judging panel to select the winning entry from more than 200 pitches, including 112 from Brazil.

“The top 10 were incredible entries that covered such a wide range of topics and suggested great potential courses of the future,” Ms Carriero said.

“Because of the calibre of entries, we also awarded two honourable mentions to James Dingley for his course in Deep Space Resources and Holographic Integration by Ahmad Allaham. These were also fantastic entries, both from Australia, which only just missed out but we’ll work with them to help them develop their ideas further.”

Another entry from Brazil, Samuel Melo, won the People’s Choice award for his entry on e-medicine.

Ms Carriero said UWA had created an international competition as part of its focus on the future.

“We want to think about the expertise, experience and qualifications that graduates of the future will need and to make sure we meet the needs of future students and that we’re always one step ahead of our competition,” she said.

“Last year we introduced more than 40 new postgraduate courses. And 10 years ago you couldn’t study courses such as a Masters in Ecotourism, Biological Arts or a Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. At UWA, these are now all a reality and the future will be a reality before we know it.”

Media references

David Stacey (UWA Media and Public Relations Manager) (+61 8) 6488 3229 / (+61 4) 32 637 716