A LIBRARIAN and an academic have beaten international competition to secure places in programs funded by American business magnate Bill Gates and his wife Melinda.
Felicity Macchion, the manager at Thomastown and Lalor libraries, is the only Australian among 25 people chosen for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s innovative libraries program to create an international pool of leaders to build libraries of the future and share knowledge globally. She will study with a mentor for two years.
“I am looking forward to the learning opportunities, liaising with other library managers around the world, and sharing the innovative ideas learnt with Australian public libraries,” Ms Macchion said.
La Trobe University geneticist Dr Warwick Grant is one of two Australian scientists of the 58 chosen worldwide to win a $100,000 grant under the foundation’s Grand Challenges Explorations program.
Dr Grant is researching a chronic debilitating parasitic disease called river blindness, which affects an estimated 120 million people worldwide.
He is focusing on new methods to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of drugs that might be able to eradicate this disease, which is transmitted by a tiny blood-sucking fly.
