The Kenneth Myer Innovation Fellowships 2023 program has opened for applications, seeking exceptional leaders with breakthrough solutions to Australia’s most pressing social and environmental problems and the capacity to bring them to fruition.

The program offers Fellows a unique opportunity to focus exclusively on their project for 12 months, with each receiving $150,000.

Launched by the Sidney Myer Fund and The Myer Foundation in 2014, the program has already empowered some of Australia’s brightest, self-directed leaders to turn their big ideas into reality, including:

• 2014 Fellow Jordan O’Reilly’s HireUp platform for people with disabilities to engage their own support workers
• 2016 Fellow Anna Rose’s work to build a national movement of farmers taking climate action through establishing Farmers for Climate Action
• 2020 Fellow Mikaela Stafrace’s The Placement Circle supports women who are isolated and vulnerable to become employment capable

Kenneth Myer Innovation Fellowships Committee Co-Convenors Anna Spraggett and Jonathan Lindsay said the program looks for the powerful combination of a breakthrough idea and the capacity of the applicant to bring it to fruition.

“Fellows gain a rare opportunity to step outside the routine of everyday working life to address any one of the biggest social or environmental tests facing our society, and find a solution that could profoundly change Australia,” Anna Spraggett said.

Co-Convenor Jonathan Lindsay added: “Time and money can be the two scarcest resources for social and environmental entrepreneurs, and the Kenneth Myer Innovation Fellowships enable passionate leaders to bring about real change by providing these resources.”

The Kenneth Myer Innovation Fellowships program is seeking:

• individuals who are experienced, entrepreneurial and connected with ideas that are high impact, unique, scalable and sustainable, and can commit for 12 months
• projects that align with one or more of the three program themes of Human, Civil & Legal Rights, Sustainability & Environment including climate change, and Poverty & Disadvantage and meet a range of other eligibility criteria.

Applicants from all professional and cultural backgrounds and across all sectors – private, public and non-profit – are encouraged to apply for the 2023 program.

Expressions of Interest for the Kenneth Myer Innovation Fellowships close at 11.59pm AEST 4 September 2022. Click here to find out more.