ECU Vice-Chancellor Professor Clare Pollock joined by 2024 Alumni Award winners.
Edith Cowan University (ECU) has celebrated its night of nights with Australia's most diverse performer Eddie Perfect.
Perth dignitaries, leading creatives, media personalities, staff and students converged at the Westin Perth to celebrate a night of world-class entertainment that was topped off with the announcement of this year's Alumni Award winners.
Get a sneak peak into Aluminate 2024 - an event that celebrated the best of ECU.
ECU Vice-Chancellor Professor Clare Pollock awarded the ECU Alumni from different categories, who have each made a profound mark on their professions and communities.
"We are remarkably proud to celebrate the ECU graduates who have gone on to do such wonderful things in their lives and careers," Professor Pollock said.
"It is a testament to the calibre of education our students receive during their time at ECU, and the rewarding experiences they carry with them long after they graduate."
2024 Distinguished Alumni Award
Distinguished Alumni Award winners: Sharon and Grant Grosser.
The 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award went to extraordinary couple, Grant and Sharon Grosser, teaching graduates turned Business News Rising Stars and EY Entrepreneurs of the Year who are the brains behind the end-to-end school teaching and learning software program, SEQTA.
Having both worked in the classroom themselves, Grant and Sharon recognised a need to support the teaching community, and it was at their kitchen table in 2006 that they created the idea for an all-in-one software system that could connect parents, children and educators.
"As my teaching career progressed, I started finding that some of the problems that I needed solved administratively needed software to help me keep track of what was happening in the pastoral care of students," Grant said.
"Eventually, we started a software company to help teachers get better value for the time they spend. The SEQTA Suite is the software that we developed. It does everything from attendance, pastoral care, marks, book reporting, all of your online learning."
Over the years, Grant and Sharon expanded their Joondalup-based tech solution across Australia and Southeast Asia and the company joined with other edTech organisations to form Education Horizons Group (subsequently acquired by private equity in 2019).
In creating SEQTA, now used by teachers and families across the world, this couple has had an immense impact on the global education sector.
"When I look back at what I learned at ECU, what really stands out is the really good lecturer I had. And that's what's so critical for potential teachers to remember, is that kids may not care about poetry, but they will remember you," Sharon added.
2024 Community and Impact Alumni Award
Community and Impact Alumni Award winner: Jody Broun.
Yinjibarndi woman, Jody Broun, was awarded the 2024 Community and Impact Alumni Award, for her service to indigenous communities.
Since graduating from ECU with teaching qualifications, Jody has transitioned out of the classroom and has held numerous senior positions across government and non-for-profit sectors over the last three decades. In her current role as the CEO of the National Indigenous Australians Agency in Canberra, she is responsible for ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are heard, recognised and empowered.
Doubling as an award-winning artist, Jody is renowned as one of the great chroniclers of Australia's red centre and has exhibited nationally as well as overseas in Singapore, London, Milan, Kyoto and Mauritius. She has been a winner of the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award and the Canberra Art Prize.
"In all the roles I've done I've been able to go out and see something tangible that I have changed, whether it’s a policy outcome, getting people jobs on the ground, or a physical asset I’ve been able to help with," Jody said.
"Inspiring a team is what I get a lot of reward out of, and then going out into community and being able to see something that you were instrumental in making a difference in."
2024 International Alumni Award
International Alumni Award winner: Shenelle Rodrigo.
Graduating from ECU in Sri Lanka with a Bachelor of Business in 2018, Shenelle Rodrigo travelled from Colombo especially to accept the 2024 International Alumni Award.
A trailblazer in the field of content creation, Shenelle served as the Official YouTube ambassador for the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau, and today runs the leading independent digital promotions platform for the tourism industry of Sri Lanka.
Shenelle has more than half a million subscribers across her social platforms, and with over 40 million views annually promoting travel and trade to Sri Lanka, her work has reached audiences from around the world to show the untapped potential that Sri Lanka has to offer.
In 2022 she received the prestigious title of "The Best Youth Tourism Promoter" from Women in Management and she has been lauded by the country's former Prime Minister for her work "taking Sri Lanka to the world."
To add to her list of impressive achievements, Shenelle is also a co-founder of a boutique production house, Assort Creative, Director of talent management agency, The Model Atelier & hosts her own TV Show "This is Sri Lanka". We are also lucky enough to have Shenelle as a Brand Ambassador for our new ECU campus in Colombo that was opened last year as the first Australian university campus in Sri Lanka.
"I was so happy ECU made this experience possible in Sri Lanka. I got the best of both worlds - to be close to my family, to travel and really get to know the country I grew up in, while also getting a really good education," she said.
"My degree at ECU definitely opened up parts of my personality that I wasn't aware of, and it showed me strengths that I wasn't aware that I had."
2024 Young Alumni Award
Young Alumni Award winner: Amy Manford.
The 2024 Young Alumni winner, went to Amy Manford.
Since graduating from WAAPA with a Bachelor of Music and Graduate Diploma in Music in 2014, the Soprano soloist has taken the performance world by storm.
In 2019, Amy Manford landed what is known as the leading role in the world of musical theatre, playing Christine in Phantom of the Opera on London's West End. Amy regularly gives solo performances for the British Royal Family, and has toured with tenor, Andrea Bocelli.
On home soil, here in Australia, ECU's Young Alumni Award winner sang the national anthem at the 2021 AFL Grand Final and has co-founded a highly successful production company called 'MM Creative Productions', which is currently touring Disney 100: The Concert nationally and around the world.
"When I was looking at different places to study around Australia, I definitely chose WAAPA because I think it is the best place to study Performing Arts," Amy said.
"The biggest career highlight do me was performing at the Hollywood Bowl with Andrea Bocelli. When I was younger, I literally used to sing karaoke with his voice on YouTube, and then suddenly, I'm with the actual person on this giant stage performing for thousands of people."
Parents, Michael and Sallie Manford, collected the Young Alumni Award on Amy's behalf.
A night to remember
Eddie Perfect performed on stage with WAAPA music students.
Never failing to entertain, WAAPA alumnus, Eddie Perfect lit up the stage.
Eddie is recognised as one of Australia's most diverse and prolific entertainers. His most recent role as Composer of Beetlejuice The Musical on Broadway, won him a nomination for Best Original Score at the 2019 Tony Awards.
His expansive career has spanned over 20 years - from stand-up comedy to music theatre composition, book writing, playwrighting, screenwriting, classical music, jazz and acting for both stage and screen.
MC Rebecca Marsh in gown by Perth designer and former ECU Design student Simone Parker.
The evening's host did not disappoint either. ECU Communications and Broadcasting graduate and former 7 News journalist Rebecca Marsh shone bright in a stunning gown, designed by former design student, Simone Parker.
John Park, Partner, Dentons.
For what was the biggest event on ECU's alumni and community calendar, it was only fitting to have the world's largest global law firm, Dentons, as Presenting Partner of Aluminate 2024. Ahead of ECU's School of Business and Law moving into the City campus, Partner of Dentons' Perth firm, John Park, proudly launched a new equity scholarship program aimed at increasing access and diversity in the law industry here in Perth and beyond starting from next year.
Amongst the other VIPs guest were ECU Chancellor, Gaye McMath, ECU Vice-Chancellor Professor Clare Pollock, Honorary Awardees Dr Sam Walsh AO and Dr Ray Wardrop, other prominent industry figures including Chair of Tourism WA, Di Bain, and CEO of Committee for Perth, Paula Rogers, along with a host of Alumni Award winners from previous years including Elsie Penny OAM and Janine Wood JP.
