Trailer: Australian Highlights

This series of podcast interviews and explainers alongside online articles, produced by Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer (me), is highlighting Australian innovation. There is plenty of content around our inventions such as the black box recorder, the lawnmower, the Hills Hoist, fast speed WiFi. These are all important, but they don’t encompass the full swathe of our innovative accomplishments.  

This series aims to expand our national narrative on innovation in a way that has a multidisciplinary, post-colonial and feminist lens (big words for a little series). This is innovation in science, arts and culture. As the host of this series, I am ultimately acting on the impulse to know everything – there is interest to be found in every topic, every discipline.

Think Ruby Payne Scott, one of the world's first radio astronomers who designed lightweight radars for World War II; think Rachel Makinson who was a pioneer in wool-based textiles; or the Utopian women from the Northern Territory who broke through the barriers of ethnographic art to become artists on the global stage. Then there's David Uniapon. He's on our $50 note, he's our version of Leonardo da Vinci, but so many of us don’t know his name.

In the trailer, you'll hear the voices of mechanical engineer Lauren Hanson, whose work is on the International Space Station, film director Rebecca Barry who is inspired by Australia's first all-female production company in the silent film era, and founder Mik Jade who is combining high-end technology with Traditional knowledge.

You'll also hear the voices of comedians Freya Reviews, Tori Crisp and confident Kirsty Kapp as they react to these incredible stories. 

I’m constantly seeking those moments where my preconceived notions melt way, my perspectives are flipped, my understandings reevaluated, and there is a recognition of what I’d taken for granted. Whether it is the etymology of epistemological or the cantilevering of concrete, or the discovery of an important individual who I’ve never heard of before. A way to do this, I feel, is to explore our innovative past and present by finding the stories beyond the ones we learnt in school.

Hopefully this series allows people to meet individuals who spark their curiosity, or offers them stories that pique their interest in new and unexpected ways.

Perhaps, there will even be people out there who have an innovative story of their own to share, that isn’t well known. It could be family history, a colleague, yourself. There are avenues to get in touch, so we can spotlight these stories in an episode. 

It all launches on Sat, 8 Feb with a live recording as part of FRINGE WORLD, Perth. 

Be a part of this series through one of the options below. Looking forward to it!