From the Lord Mayor's Office
A new way to celebrate local heroes
Every day I have the good fortune of meeting people from all walks of life who all contribute – in their own way – to making Wollongong the fantastic city it is.
At Monday night’s Council meeting I was pleased to announce a new award that was coming to the city.
This recognition is the Lord Mayor’s Local Hero Award, and it provides the opportunity for people doing extraordinary things, every day to be applauded for their efforts.
It compliments our existing awards opportunities like the annual City of Wollongong Awards or presenting the Keys to the City.
It seems right that the first ever recipient of the award was the amazing Project Bucephalus robotics team.
This team were recently awarded the Championship Impact Award at the FIRST Robotics Championship in the USA. This award is the single highest award in the global FIRST program and goes to the team which best embodies the mission of FIRST through education, innovation and lasting impact.
And were admitted to the FIRST Hall of Fame – only the 4th time a team out of the US has been recognised with this award!
I have seen the team of students and their volunteer mentors, led by Andrew and Lyndell Clark, work on their robot out of a small building at the Wollongong TAFE.
And I’ve witnessed firsthand their pride in participating, creating and building their robots, as well as preparing other materials to go with their presentation.
To win on this scale is an absolute credit to them all and their pride in their robot was absolutely justified.
I congratulate all the student participants, their volunteer mentors and sponsors on this tremendous achievement, against 600 teams from around the world.
And am very pleased to recognise their achievement with a Lord Mayor’s Local Hero Award. May they be the first of many recipients celebrated for their amazing achievements.
