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| Anne-Marie Birkill Photo: Hugh O’Brien |
Women must play a vital role in Queensland’s biotech future, says Anne-Marie Birkill, inaugural chair of the newly formed Women in Biotech.
How times have changed. When Anne-Marie Birkill was at school, her father had to coerce the headmaster into allowing her to study physics, chemistry and maths 1 and 2. Today, she is chair of a newly formed group which, among other things, sends young female scientists into Queensland schools to actively encourage girls to pursue careers in biotechnology.
Early last year, Anne-Marie and two colleagues – Jane Andrews from Implicit Bioscience and Ann Uldridge from Nanomics BioSystems – felt that women working in biotechnology in Queensland needed their own organisation. So they gathered together 20 leading female professionals and under the umbrella of Women in Technology and in association with AusBiotech, they formed Queensland Women in Biotech (WiB).
“The Smart State vision has created great opportunities in biotech but for the full potential of the industry to be realised, all resources have to be utilised and women are a great untapped resource,” Anne-Marie said.
WiB will foster women’s participation in biotech by bringing together students, researchers, technology managers and business people. As well as the role-model days aimed at students in Years 11 and 12, the group is planning mini-seminars, meet-your-peers exchanges, site visits, technical roundtables and skill transfer workshops.
“We’re also keen to take the message outside of Brisbane with regional tours planned to promote careers in biotech and ICT,” Anne-Marie said.
Another aim of WiB will be encouraging employers to offer flexible options in the workplace. “To really get the most out of women employees, workplaces need to be genuinely flexible and family-friendly and that applies just as much for men who want to juggle work and other commitments.”
Anne-Marie hopes WiB will help women in biotech take more risks and give them the confidence to take on new challenges.
“Men tend to be better self-promoters, so we need to encourage women to present themselves in a better light and have the courage to go for jobs where, for example, they might satisfy only three of the five selection criteria.”
Anne-Marie herself has never been afraid to take on new challenges. Appointed CEO of the Queensland Government’s i.lab technology incubator in January 2005, she has since overseen the creation of the i.lab bio-incubator at Brisbane Technology Park at Eight Mile Plains.
The dedicated biotechnology incubator facility, which will accommodate up to 10 early stage biotechnology start-up companies in state-of-the-art labs, is a far cry from her first job.
“On a CSIRO Scholarship I had the glamorous job of collecting dung on remote Northern Territory cattle stations to work out whether dung beetles or termites were better at breaking it down!” she said.
Anne-Marie still bears the scars from her tangle with a wild steer and a barbed-wire fence but the experience toughened her up for a management career that has included commercial plant breeding with Sunki Pty Ltd, product development at ForBio Research, corporate development at UniQuest Pty Ltd and consultancy work with the Australian Institute of Commercialisation.
“If Queensland is to achieve Premier Beattie’s goal of 16 000 jobs in biotech by the year 2025, women have to be a big part of that and the groundwork needs to be done now,” Anne-Marie said.
www.wib.org.au
www.ilab.com.au
Last reviewed 15 March 2006