To secure our water future we must embrace equity and inclusion and drive diverse thinking.
As part of this, at GHD we're focused on prioritising lasting community benefit in everything we do. We're proud to share some examples of how we're collaborating with our clients, partners and communities to create a legacy for all.
Providing engineering pathways for young women
Four students from Catholic College, Wodonga, recently joined GHD’s local team for an immersive week of work experience as part of our longstanding STEM Pathways program.
In partnership with North East Water, we held site visits at a local wastewater treatment plant, coordinated an information session with TVN On-Country, as well as a range of other introductory engineering sessions.
GHD's Maritsa Kacopieros and Rebecca Argento, joined AWA's regular podcast to talk about women in engineering and the value of initiatives such as our STEM Pathways program, including challenges and outcomes.
Listen time: 18 minutes
Cultivating the next generation of STEAM leaders
The GHD Foundation is partnering with The Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation in Greater Houston, Texas; Westchester County, New York; and Southern California, to cultivate the next generation of civically engaged, workforce-ready environmental stewards while recognising the incredible potential within communities experiencing limited socio-educational advantage.
The project will equip students and teachers with STEAM skills of data literacy, communications, and design thinking to help raise awareness of how the ecosystem services and potable water provided by their local watersheds can be protected and enhanced through simple everyday actions in their communities.
Making science accessible to regional and remote students
Established in 2013, La Trobe University’s Freely-Accessible Remote Laboratories (FARLabs) is a virtual laboratory where high school students from around Australia and globally can carry out science experiments remotely.
Funding from GHD Foundation is helping FARLabs reach approximately 100 regional and remote schools, in addition to the development of new learning content through experiments and interactive learning experiences in the areas of food, agriculture and climate change which will be developed with regional and rural communities in mind.
What can we learn from other industries?
Australia’s rail industry is transforming. There are roughly 70,000 workers needed to deliver the $155 billion pipeline of rail infrastructure projects over the next 15 years. With women making up 24 per cent of the rail workforce and a perception of the industry as being manual and labour-intensive, there is a need to improve the profile of rail as a fulfilling career option, particularly for women.
Key findings from GHD's Women in Rail report include:
Primary and high-school students have little to no awareness of what the rail industry offers in terms of careers.
Those who study engineering say there is very limited information in the curriculum about how their degree could be applied to the rail industry.
How can we learn from other industries, like rail, as they shift perceptions and accelerate opportunities for women?
How can the use of AI positively transform our industry?
We are standing at the forefront of a transformative wave in the evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) models. It's an opportunity to reimagine how we solve problems, deliver value and drive growth.
However, GHD Digital's Beyond AI report shows that only 50% of executives have confidence in their ability to successfully navigate and embrace this transformative technology. And worryingly, there are growing concerns around the ability of generative AI models to produce highly realistic content, such as text, images or videos, which can be misused to create biased and misinformed content. According to our analysis, about 50% of generative AI-generated data is fabricated or inaccurate.
What are the opportunities, applications and considerations for AI in areas such as environmental sustainability and advancing water management? And how do we account for critical concerns such as privacy and overt, unconscious or inherent bias?
GHD Foundation
The GHD Foundation is an independent set of charities that fund programs and organisations to help develop resilient communities.
The Foundation's partnerships support community relief as well as a major focus on equitable access to Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) education for a more diverse workforce of the future. They also connect needs with GHD skills and expertise, helping to amplify the social impact of their initiatives.
It currently receives the majority of its donations from GHD, in addition to in-kind support as the Foundation's founding partner.
For more information, visit ghdfoundation.org
GHD in the Community
GHD in the Community enables our people to work together to give back to the community through volunteering, using our technical skills and fundraising for not-for-profit organisations.
We do this in the communities where we live and work, as well as through strategic partnerships around the globe.