A FORMER Taree resident will travel to China to pitch at an international summit on global issues after being part of the team that won the inaugural 2015 China Australia Millennial Project (CAMP).
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Kate Cavanagh was part of a five person team which competed at the CAMP summit in Sydney from June 1-5 this year.
CAMP is a world-first project which unites top young leaders and innovators from China and Australia to tackle global challenges and create solutions.
Kate applied to be part of the CAMP project and was chosen along with 130 other participants from the two countries.
These participants formed groups of five and were tasked with coming up with a product idea.
Kate's team worked within the energy and sustainable living sector.
Three teams, including Kate's, were selected as finalists from the pool of teams, and they then pitched their ideas again at the CAMP gala dinner at Sydney's Town Hall, competing to win a trip to China to pitch to the OTEC entrepreneurs' summit and a one million RMB prize.
Kate's team's winning concept, called Elumin8, is a product that visualises energy use at home.
The product would display the energy that certain household items use, which would help residents learn about energy consumption and enable them to modify their energy use accordingly.
According to the group, Elumin8 "uses smart meter data to empower households to use energy efficiently," with the goal of transforming energy consumption in China and Australia and therefore helping to mitigate climate change.
Kate has recently completed her Master of Engineering Science at the University of Newcastle and currently works for the CSIRO in Newcastle as a research project manager co-ordinating research for the integration of renewable energy in the Australian energy grid.
Kate, who has never been to China before, said the summit had offered her a huge opportunity to experience attitudes towards energy consumption on the international stage.
"It's such an opportunity to learn," she said.
"It's an opportunity to gain experience in a start-up company, which is something I've never been involved with before."
Kate was born in Taree and went to Taree High School, where she received a principal's recommendation to the University of New England (Armidale) to study a Bachelor of Science with honours in organic chemistry.
She said the upcoming trip, to occur in August this year, is an exciting step forward in her career.
"It's an opportunity to see the work we do in science applied in the real world," she said.
"It's all about making a difference."
