Research is a driving force behind a new economy Geelong is building. Nano-technology, health, social behaviour, materials and sport are just some of the pursuits underpinning the rise of new enterprises. Not surprisingly, some sharp-minded women are setting the pace. NOEL MURPHY reports …

IRANIAN scientist Minoo Naebe is a long way from her home but it’s a choice she made to set herself among the world’s sharpest research minds in textiles and materials.

At Deakin University’s Centre for Material and Fibre Innovation, she’s drawn world attention for her work with extraordinary, tiny nanotechnology game-changers.

Nanotechnology is all about engineering at the atomic or molecular level. It’s science fiction come true, an enterprise where all manner of functional systems – motors, robot arms, computers – are built and operated at a tiny, tiny level.

It’s going to be behind new technologies for medicine, energy, security, the environment, powerful midget batteries, clothing to guard against chemical and biological hazards, air-purifying filters, tissue scaffold implants to repair injuries and more.

“I think polymer Nano fibre technology, like the internet, will revolutionise the way we live,’’ Dr Naebe says.

“There’s huge potential for different applications, some are already on the market, like filtration, and if you think carbon nanotube fibres, they’re using them in aerospace and aircraft structures.’’

Other uses are tipped to include clean water, enhanced food and crops, cheap and powerful energy, vastly improved drugs, smart appliances, increased human performance, medical diagnostics, organ replacement, super manufacturing … as she says, it’s a long list.

Dr Naebe’s work is presently focussed on making Aussie soldiers safer in the field – with lighter, better-performing helmets and high-curvature body armour.

Her research is a collaborative affair, alongside researchers from the Victorian Centre for Advance Materials Manufacturing, Australian Defence Apparel and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation. She’s been part of teams that have snaffled a swag of national and international awards.

The upshot is that Deakin University is a world leader in composite materials, something Dr Naebe hopes can save lives, boost jobs and reboot economies like Geelong’s.

“It takes a certain personality to follow research,’’ Dr Naebe says.

“You have to be very curious, very persistent, and on top of that you have to have passion and never give up – the answer might need you to do things again and again.

“I was very interested in doing something that makes a difference to the world and to people.’’

More high flyers features in the latest GC Magazine, out now.

Geelong’s aviation industry is flying high with more opportunities than ever before – pilot training, sales and maintenance. John Van Klaveren took wing to checked out what’s happening inside the region’s hangars.

GEELONG is on the cusp of becoming an “aviation city” – and adventurous local women helping lead the charge.

While Avalon Airport has grabbed the lion’s share of recent aviation coverage, general aviation – or light planes – is going ahead leaps and bounds in the region.

That’s despite the closure of Geelong’s best-known regional airfield, at Grovedale, after the land was sold to Armstrong Creek developers.

Ceres’s airstrip, run by Lindy Lee, has long been a beacon for local aviators, and now Lethbridge Airport is also assuming prominence after recently secured $1 million in State Government funding for runway and other upgrades.

Lethbridge flight training business Skythrills is running one of Australia’s first vocational training courses for secondary students.

Joy flights and aerobatics displays are also part of the Skythrills business.

Co-owner and aviator Jodie Davis began flying in her early 20s mainly to scratch an itch and without expecting it would become a career.

Jodie discovered her passion for flight despite the high initial cost of learning to fly.

Now she’s keen to pass on her passion.

The investment in Lethbridge Airport facilities and infrastructure will make a significant difference, enabling Skythrills to offer more course places to schools within the Barwon region.

Students from five Geelong-based schools – Northern Bay, Western Heights Secondary, Newcomb Secondary, North Geelong Secondary colleges and Geelong Grammar – are enrolled in Jodie’s Sky High course.

Jodie says Kardinia International College has signed on to take part in the program next year and she expects other schools to join after the upgrade announcement.

The course is aimed at getting students interested and prepared for futures in aviation, helping budding student pilots earn national accreditation before finishing high school.

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

After Five

EVENT

PHOTOS: CHERIE DONNELLAN

Sexuality is a hot social topic, with marriage equality at the top of the list. But what does it mean to a young gay man facing homophobia? And why are Geelong organisations hoping to change organisational culture to be more sexuality-inclusive? CHERIE DONNELLAN finds out.

PICTURES: REG RYAN AND CHERIE DONNELLAN

WHEN I think of the word ‘gay’ I recall alluring images of Mardi Gras – a flurry of colours, smiles and some really quirky costumes. Dance music and laughter is heard in the background of scenes shown yearly on TV.

I think of Geelong’s Hollywood darling Portia de Rossi and her hilarious wife Ellen DeGeneres (pity they didn’t stop by Geelong during their Australian visit).

I think of Twitter’s consistently-trending “#marriageequality” and the flood of support for nations that change laws to allow same-sex couples to marry (good one, New Zealand).

I think of the beautiful rainbow flag that flies high at gay rights support days like IDAHO Day which sends around the message that homophobia is toxic to Australians who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex (GLBTI).

To me – a straight, Gen Y woman – homophobia is old hat. It’s as out-dated a belief as thinking the world is flat.

And yet, it seems even in our hometown, individuals are still facing discrimination – in schools and workplaces – because of their sexuality.

I met with Dylan, a 20-year old Geelong man. He’s gay, and for that, he’s copped a world of abuse.

Two weeks into a new job, Dylan’s manager learned his sexuality. Her treatment of him abruptly changed.

“She would put me down for everything I said or did. She’d belittle me.

“She’d make sly comments about me being gay. It’s like she was trying to joke around. It’s like she was trying to be funny but she was still being offensive at the same time.”

After three months of tolerating his manager’s constant jibes, Dylan “lashed out”.

“I’d had enough.”

“I had asked for an apology [from senior management] and they said that’s not going to happen.

“[My manager] still to this day denies she mistreated me.”

The homophobia Dylan experienced at his job continued months after he quit.

His former manager contacted police, alleging he was “violent…aggressive, that she was scared of me, that I prank call her and send her threats. I didn’t do any of that. I didn’t even have her contact details. It was two months after I’d left.”

Dylan considered applying for an intervention order; after she was made aware of this, she “backed off” from the allegations.

“I don’t understand homophobia,” Dylan says, shaking his head.

More in the current issue of GC Magazine.

Life’s full of laugh for the stars of the comedy circuit but it all has to start somewhere. Comedian and writer Kate McLennan reveals her hometown inspirations to GC’s CHERIE DONNELLAN.

AS a year 11 student at Belmont High School, Kate McLennan dragged best friend Sally with her to a Barwon Theatre Company acting class.

Sally sidestepped the limelight but Kate answered the call of the arts.

In awe of theatre teacher Caroline Morris, who by day taught drama at Christian College, Kate set her sights on entering VCE drama classes.

Without drama available at Belmont High, Kate enrolled at Christian College, just a taxi fare or dad-drive away.

Her talent earned her a place in performing arts at University of Ballarat, setting Kate on the road to becoming a “serious actor”.

But she was continually cast in comic roles – a career plot twist for which she’s now grateful.

“It took someone else to tell me I was good at comedy for me to get it,” Kate recalls.

Roles in sketch and solo shows followed, with Kate utilising her drama skills to hone comedy characters.

She debuted as a professional comedy actress with multiple roles in The Debutante Diaries, her 2006 story about angst-ridden teenagers preparing for their deb.

The show was a hit at Melbourne Fringe festival, winning Best Comedy and earning Kate a Best Newcomer award.

Despite the success, she initially worried the festival debut would become her career swansong.

“The show had all these sad bits in it and I thought, ‘This is a drama, not comedy’. I asked to change it from the comedy section to theatre but couldn’t … and on opening night I was expecting to be doing this serious show about teenage angst and the politics of debutante balls but the audience was laughing.

“Lucky I didn’t change it. There was the sense that I was so new that I had no idea the show was even funny.”

 See the current edition of GC Magazine for more.

Just who discovered Australia and when has long been a vexed topic.  And Geelong has an interesting, mysterious and even key role in confirming just who made it here first. NOEL MURPHY tips conventional wisdom on its head.

WE KNOW of the arrival of Aborigines 40,000 years ago, deemed by some historians as a planned immigration.

We know of Britain’s James Cook on the east coast in 1770, English buccaneer William Dampier on the west coast in 1699 and Dutch navigator Abel Tasman around the south in 1642.

We know, too, of Spain’s Luis Vaez de Torres coming through the northern strait bearing his name in 1606. Likewise, Dutchman Willem Janszoon arriving at Cape York in his tiny Duyfken a few months earlier the same year.

But we know precious little, notwithstanding a raft of evidence, of what is an even more remarkable tale of exploration and discovery – by Muslim navigators and map-makers.

It’s a tale reflecting far deeper multicultural beginnings than the oft-cited white European version; a tale that ties Australia’s discovery to one of the most pivotal scientists in history – the man who invented the numerical system underpinning our science of mathematics.

It’s a tale that has Islamic navigators and scholars front and centre in Australia’s discovery, producing the first map of Australia in Baghdad in 820 AD followed by another in 934 AD and regularly appearing in Australian waters, exploring and trading with Aborigines.

Spearheading the revival of this a forgotten history is Ocean Grove journalist and historian Dzavid Haveric who has published two books on the Muslim discovery of Australia and other parts of the world.

The beauty of Haveric’s account is, firstly, the antiquity of the Muslim arrival – when the Western world was buried in the Dark Ages – and, secondly, the depth of research to his argument.

“The maps of Australia drawn by Muslim scholars appeared in the golden era of Islamic civilisation,” Haveric writes in his 2012 book, History of the Muslim Discovery of the World.

For more on Dzavid Haveric’s discoveries, see the current edition of GC Magazine, out now.