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On Tuesday 10 March, representatives from CSIRO, local high schools and industry attended the CSIRO STEM Professionals in Schools networking event held at our Rydalmere site.

CSIRO STEM Professionals in Schools is a national volunteer program that facilitates partnerships between schools and industry to bring real world STEM into the classroom.

A number of Thales staff have been participating in the program, and Thales volunteered to hold the first meeting of 2020 at the Rydalmere site. STEM Professionals in Schools Project Officer Camille Rogers said that these kinds of events are always invaluable to the attendees, whether they are new to the program or have been participating for a while. 

‘There is the opportunity for everyone to gain a greater understanding of what an industry player actually does, and what they have to offer potential partners or the wider community. It also presents a wonderful networking opportunity, and the chance to hear from existing partnerships who share their own insights and activity examples - it’s a very inspiring experience,’ said Camille. 

Those attending the event received an overview of the different projects that Thales Australia works on, which was followed by a tour of the Rydalmere facility. The tour included an overview of the Transport Lab, an explanation of how acoustic production works, an overview of the overall sonar system development and support capability, and a tour of the EMI chamber.

The last stop on the tour was a visit to the AVS COOL lab, where the collective training capability, FlyX future avionics demonstrator, Virtual Reality training system UniVRS and Helmet Mounted Displays developments were showcased.

To wrap up the evening, there were a series of ‘Lightning Lectures’ where four STEM professionals presented on the work they were doing with local schools and discussed the benefits it was bringing to both themselves and the school.

Phil Swadling, Technical Director, Avionics facilitated the evening and said events like this are important as it provides a fantastic opportunity to connect with the community of people contributing to the pool of STEM talent.

‘It is a great way for Thales to contribute to this vital work, by ensuring teachers are aware of the very real career opportunities that are available through organisations such as Thales.’

To read more about STEM Professionals in Schools, please click .