Strong aspirations to develop conferences in Perth

AUSTRALASIA – There were over 50 applicants this year hoping to receive professional development funding to attend and attract conferences to Western Australia, under the  Perth Convention Bureau (PCB) Aspire Program. Competition was strong, with 10 award winners announced at an event at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre on 28 May 2015. Dr Paola Chivers was winner of the University of Notre Dame Australia award for her bidding to secure Perth the 12th International Conference on Development Disorder 2017. She said: “It’s been a fantastic opportunity to apply and win this award. This enabled us to put together a very professional bid which we have just discovered has been successful. I am extremely excited to be working with the Perth Convention Bureau to deliver a great event for Western Australia”. Winner of the City of Perth Convention Scholarship was Dr Heidi Stieglitz Ham (Autism and Language Intervention –WA). Jessica Richards (Kidsafe WA) was the winner of Giving West Scholarship and Ms Michelle Bateman (Citizen Advocacy South Metropolitan Inc.) won the City of Mandurah Scholarship. The other winners were Dr Oktay Erten and Professor Kerry Brown (Curtin University), Dr Robert Cunningham and Tara McLaren (University of Western Australia), Dr Greg Lopez (Murdoch University), and Dr Jennifer Loh (Edith Cowan University). PCB chief executive, Paul Beeson said: “The program has been responsible for contributing more than AUS$100m dollars to the WA economy as well as playing a key role in securing conferences that have and will continue to contribute to advancing the state’s broad expertise and knowledge in a wide range of industries”.