The Kenneth Myer Innovation Fellowships 2021 program is calling for applications from exceptional leaders with groundbreaking solutions to Australia’s most pressing social and environmental problems.

Kenneth Myer Innovation Fellowships give individuals 12 months to focus exclusively on an idea that has the potential to reshape Australia. Fellows each receive $120,000 and up to $30,000 for operational expenses for their year-long commitment to the program.

Launched by the Sidney Myer Fund and The Myer Foundation in 2014, the program has already empowered 21 Australians to turn their big idea into reality, including Jordan O’Reilly’s HireUp platform for people with disabilities to engage their own support workers, Emma Koster’s HelloCass SMS chatbot supporting people living with family violence and Dr Daniel Harrison’s cloud brightening technology to help mitigate coral bleaching.

Kenneth Myer Innovation Fellowships Committee Co-Convenors Dr Anna Foley and Anna Spraggett 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 and chase down an answer to some of the great tests society faces,” Dr Foley said.

Co-Convenor Anna Spraggett added: “Time and money can be the two scarcest resources for social and environmental entrepreneurs, and 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 projects that align with one or more of the three program themes – Human, Civil and Legal Rights, Sustainability and Environment and Poverty and 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 2021 program.

The program has been renamed in honour of the late Mr Kenneth Myer AC DSC, who, along with his brother Mr Baillieu Myer AC, co-founded The Myer Foundation in 1959 and was President until his death in 1992.

The Kenneth Myer Innovation Fellowships remind us of Kenneth Myer’s enduring legacy and inspire the Foundation to continue to support the best and brightest as they strive to achieve environmental and social change.