What are the Trailblazer Awards?
The Trailblazer Awards celebrates Year 12 students beyond their ATAR, recognising those who have overcome personal challenges and used their final year of school to positively impact their community.
Our Trailblazers will have the opportunity to network with industry leaders, build their personal brand and profile as a future leader, get exam ready in our 1-day HSC Trials Accelerator, and so much more!
Find out how Alexandra navigated Year 12 differently throughout 2022!
Introducing: Alexandra Ventura
Category: Science & Technology
School: Bethlehem College, Ashfield
State: NSW
Career Aspiration: Pursuing something in the field of computer science or project management
Achievements
- Winner of the NRMA Future Transport Challenge completed with her group
- Winner of ADF Future Innovators Award
- Heavily involved in a variety of school clubs
What makes Alexandra a Trailblazer?
Following an extensive prototyping and project building period, Alexandra and her team of 4 won the NRMA Future Transport Challenge, giving them the amazing opportunity to share their pitch with a government transport representative. This period of product creation fuelled Alexandra’s interest in STEM – having coded the entire winning app from scratch, she was encouraged to pursue and delve into her technological capabilities! The success from winning this award eventually led her to also win the ADF Future Innovators Award.
“Our main focus for the app was to facilitate more inclusivity on public transport, specifically trains, as the app was designed as a support tool for wheelchair bound people.”
The challenge, as one might expect, provided Alexandra with some invaluable practical STEM experience, where she was the main programmer of the app. She went through an extensive process of learning how to code an app with her previously limited knowledge. However, she was able to produce a high end app worthy of winning the challenge! This experience motivated Alexandra to move into a STEM career, utilising the skills of teamwork, coding and project management.
Aside from partaking in this challenge, Alexandra spent a great amount of her time involved in extracurricular activities at school including being the head of the Lavender Book Club, participating in the CARE environmental club, current affairs club, playing netball, debating, partaking in the STEM club and the St Anne’s mentoring program. Alexandra also coaches a netball team outside of school and has been doing so for the past 14 weeks, allowing her to model a work environment and exercise skills such as communication, organisation and time management among others. As seen, Alexandra’s interests are of a wide variety!
Reflecting upon the challenges she faced, Alexandra concluded that Year 12 in itself is a highly stressful and challenging time of her life – especially as it creeps closer to the HSC. As classwork, assessments and deciding uni courses and applying for them began to become more dense Alexandra became overwhelmed. However, she worked towards applying herself to her work and working through those barriers and roadblocks when they occurred.
Alexandra would like to pursue a career in computer science or project management in the future. She believes that a career in these fields would be one that she could adapt well too and enjoy.
Alexandra has shown a key interest in one of her passions and has pursued that passion alongside her heavy schoolwork, one of the many reasons why she is one of our Top 50 Trailblazers!
The Top 50 Year 12 Trailblazer Awards
The Trailblazer Awards aim to identify and celebrate students who use their final years of school to invest holistically in the skills and experiences that will maximise their own future opportunities and make a contribution to the future of our society.
Our winners for the Year 12 Trailblazer Awards have demonstrated initiative in volunteering for their school or community, have participated in co-curricular activities, and have held leadership positions within their schools.
Learn more about who placed in the Top 50 Year 12 Trailblazers here!
About Art of Smart Education
At Art of Smart Education, we’re an award-winning provider of holistic tutoring and mentoring for students in years K-12. Our mission is to help students answer the difficult question, “What am I going to do with my life when I finish school, and how do I get there?”
We understand that true success involves mastering study, career and leadership skills while maintaining your wellbeing, not just excelling in academics and as a result, over the last decade, we’ve supported over 10,000 students to achieve their best and maximise their options for life after school.
Each year over one million young Australians, parents, and teachers access our guides, videos and resources to navigate the journey through high school.
