What happens when students, community leaders, and industry come together to tackle a real-world challenge? At Murdoch Business School's inaugural Innovation Pitch!, the answers were inspiring, practical, and grounded in genuine partnership with Country.

Something unfolded quietly at Murdoch University on the evening of Thursday 25 June 2026. Tucked inside the Boola Katitjin Innovation Hub on Whadjuk Noongar Country, the inaugural MBS Innovation Pitch! brought together students, academics, community leaders, industry partners, families, and friends to appreciate innovation which was co-created with community and genuine care. 

Six finalist teams, selected from more than 40 cross-disciplinary teams spanning Murdoch's Perth, Singapore, and Dubai campuses, stepped up to pitch bold, community-led solutions to one of the most urgent and overlooked paradoxes of our time.

How might we repurpose decommissioned solar panels into culturally grounded energy and water solutions that strengthen community resilience and self-determination?

This was the challenge handed to students in BUS368: Cultures of Innovation as part of the [Em]Powering Country initiative.

Across Australia, government incentives are driving the premature decommissioning of solar panels that still have decades of useful life, contributing to a projected one million tons of solar waste by 2035. Simultaneously, Aboriginal homeland communities in the Pilbara and Kimberley, including Wakuthuni and Mulan, face unreliable diesel power, unsafe water, high energy costs, and heatwaves pushing past 45°C.

Waste and poverty. Side by side. On the same continent, in a rich resource state.   

Professor Antonia Girardi, Pro Vice-Chancellor College of Business and Dean of the Murdoch Business School, opened the evening with a passionate address that set the tone for the night.

“These students did not design for Country," she told the room.

"They designed with Country."

Guided by First Nations leadership and the profound contribution of Dr Roz Walker and the Coolamon Research and Advocacy Centre, students were immersed in a learning journey centred on cultural integrity, two-way knowledge, and deep respect for people who have cared for this land for tens of thousands of years.

Associate Professor Martin Brueckner, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Sustainability and Project Sponsor, provided context on the EmPowering Country initiative and the vision for thriving futures on Country.

A judging panel drawn from industry, government, and community including Georgia Lilly (WA Innovator of the Year Award, Department of Energy & Economic Diversification), Jason McFarlane (GreenTech Hub), and Rick Brooks (AusIndustry) assessed each pitch against criteria of real-world impact, cultural alignment, evidence, and pathway to implementation. 

When the judges deliberated and announced the awards, TEAM ORIGIN (Singapore) and team AQUA BLOOM (Perth) emerged as the two winning teams, with their ideas now moving onto the next stage of prototyping and piloting on Country over the next 12–18 months.

Special recognition also went to Dubai teams SOLAR HUB and SOLAR AQUA, as well as Perth teams BARA-JIRNDU and SOLAR SOLVERS for delivering innovative and deeply considered solutions worthy of acknowledgment. 

As Professor Girardi reminded every student in that room:

"You have already won something. You have won a way of seeing. A way of working.
A way of being an innovator that holds people, especially the most vulnerable,
at the very heart of what it means to care.”