2021 Women of the Future Awards – ENTER HERE

The Australian Women’s Weekly, in partnership with La Trobe Financial, is opening entries for The Australian Women’s Weekly 2021 Women of the Future Awards.

Now in its ninth year, the prestigious event recognises and celebrates Australia’s incredible young female trailblazers with one very deserving winner announced at a 2021 Awards Luncheon later this year.

The Women of the Future Awards are open to Australian women aged 18-34 with a charity, innovation idea or business that aims to bring positive change to the lives of others. Previous winners have taken the encouragement and the prize money they received and achieved extraordinary things.

In 2015, tech entrepreneur Marita Cheng won for her telepresence robot, Teleport. Since then she has established her own company, Aubot, and created the Aipoly vision app. In 2019 she was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), and has just been named one of the world’s most influential women engineers, alongside a Nobel Prize winner and three former NASA astronauts.

Also in 2019, young inventor Macinley Butson won a Women of the Future Award for her breast radiation shield, and went on to be named among Forbes’ 30 under 30 Asia – a list of the brightest young entrepreneurs and leaders in the region.  That same year, fashion maverick Courtney Holm was a Women of the Future winner, and in 2020 she took out the Australian Fashion Laureate Sustainable Innovation (Emerging Designer) award.

Last year’s winner, Anna Robertson, is the creator of a trailblazing, socially responsible fashion label, YEVU Clothing, in Ghana. Even through COVID, she has been able to employ more women this year and redouble her efforts to combat period poverty.

Editor-in-Chief of The Australian Women’s Weekly Nicole Byers said: “We are delighted to be launching our annual Women of the Future Awards.  Women of the Future is an integral part of our commitment to providing a platform to showcase Australia’s emerging generation of female changemakers; women who are driving positive change in their community, the country or the world.”

The Australian Women’s Weekly is thrilled to have the support of Women of the Future patron, Elizabeth Broderick AO, who says there has never been a more important time to accelerate the careers and encourage the ambitions of young women.

“We find ourselves in an era of mass change, and we need women’s wisdom and voices and ideas to shape our future and I am very much looking forward to meeting this year’s finalists,” Ms Broderick said.

Six finalists will be flown to Sydney to attend the Women of the Future event and the overall winner will receive more than $100,000 in cash and prizes.

Entries are open now for the 2021 Women of the Future Awards. For more details on how to enter, see the September issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly, on sale now, or visit nowtolove.com.au/womenofthefuture2021