Kylie Walker is turning her passion into a pursuit

It’s less than three weeks to our next event, Limitless: The Other Side of Impossible, to be held on June 5. Over the last few weeks we’ve been rolling out our list of incredible speakers including:

• Chris Helder who’ll be working on changing our mindset
• Samantha Gash, endurance athlete and social advocate
• Dr. Vanessa Pirotta, a pioneer in the use of emerging technologies for whale conservation and;
• Dr. Han Lin, who’ll talk about the unlimited potential of graphene

We’re thrilled to profile our next speaker, Kylie Walker, whose long list of achievements all contribute to her goal for diversity and equality. Don’t miss your chance of being part of it and buy your tickets now!

Kylie’s career successes are long and diverse. This farm girl from NSW started her career studying Journalism / Politics at university and later became a journalist who covered science, health and medicine. Now she’s the CEO of Science and Technology Australia, Chair of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO and Co-Chair of the National Research and Innovation Alliance, plus, she’s the creator of Superstars for STEM program and a member of the steering committee for NOW Australia. Oh, and she’s happily married to her wife with three children. How does she do it all?

It’s her drive to achieve equality across all aspects of life: work, education, culture and society that motivates her. She’s a trailblazer pushing for policy change and advocating with leaders in academia, business, politics, the media and the public sector for the removal of structural barriers and proactive work to change cultural expectations and stereotypes. She’s a massive supporter of women and wants them to become their own advocates and champions.

This is what fascinates us about Kylie when it comes to being Limitless. For so long women have been made to think they’re second class citizens. And the worst part is that these ‘rules’ were invisible to most of us: weren’t we taught to think that CEOs were men? Why couldn’t girls play football? But those rules are trembling now, and it’s been happening for a while. From the silent revolutions that women carry out daily to exemplary achievements, like Kylie’s, that demonstrate that we are all equal. That, women deserve the same opportunities; that their place shouldn’t be defined by gender, ethnicity or condition. Through her work and in her talk at TEDxMelbourne Kylie will encourage us to think beyond those limitations. That all people, regardless of their gender, culture and experiences are equal and have the potential to reach extraordinary heights. With Kylie’s work, we will have the right systems in place for girls in schools to not question a STEM career. To encourage children to be loud, strong and proud of their achievements.

Kylie is honoured to bring her ideas to TEDxMelbourne:

I have lots of ideas about how to build a better world, and am excited to be able to share some of them with the TEDxMelbourne audience.

She’s also excited to hear the amazing ideas from our other speakers. ‘What we could be? Where we could how? How we could become!’ The concept of Limitless is so exhilarating because it has no boundaries; it’s going to push us to think outside our usual world. Plus, like many of our speakers, she’s a long time TED fan. ‘One of my favourite things to do is let the TED podcast play on random as I work in the garden or walk the dog.’

Kylie is no stranger to pushing her own barriers, and she says she cannot think of a single year in which she hasn’t deliberately jumped in with both feet. In 2019 alone she’ll be representing Australia at the UNESCO annual meeting in France. Here she’ll hope to meet people from all over the world who are working to build educational opportunity and protect the free exchange of knowledge. People who are pushing their own limits every day or every year so that the next generation can thrive. Kylie is also keen to grow their Superstars of STEM program so that more Australian women tell their extraordinary stories to the world; and to showcase more of the big and small ways in which science and technology benefit all our lives, every day.

Join us for a night of challenging conversation, inspiration, great music, entertainment from Future Crunch and more. Check out our amazing prices (discounts available for students and big groups) and get your tickets now! To stay in the loop for announcements, follow us on Instagram and Facebook.