Picton High School Students Win South West Sydney Sustainnovation Challenge #1 with a “Voice for All” idea

South West Sydney Sustainnovation Challenge, organised in collaboration with Wollondilly Shire Council and local high schools, kicked off last week. The challenge aimed to connect with the community through data and art, and after two days of hard work, students from Picton High School emerged as winners with their project “Unity Within Our Community – A voice for all.”

The winning idea revolves around creating a dynamic art piece that reflects the diversity and shared interests of the youth in Wollondilly. To gather data for the art piece, students plan to place an online questionnaire accessible through a QR code around the community and schools. The information collected from the questionnaire will then be used to create a real-time, interactive, data-driven art piece.

The project is being delivered under a research fund won by MCB Business Partners and FastLab, a tech meets art and culture research and development lab at the University of Newcastle. With the support of students from Wollondilly and the Hunter region, the art piece will be constructed and launched at the Wollondilly illuminate festival later this year.

Other community stories pitched during the challenge include measuring and documenting water pollution, a community well-being initiative for people suffering from post-traumatic stress following fires and floods, and building greater communication between the local government and the community surrounding road events and repairs.

The next South-West Sydney Sustainnovation Challenge, in partnership with the City of Canterbury Bankstown, will explore the challenge of creating places where women and girls feel safer.