"We live on the biggest island on earth, but one no longer cowed by the tyranny of distance. Education is global and educators are global. These stories celebrate those new and expanding horizons."
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Africa, awake
Putting a nation on a new path, especially one to prosperity, calls for more than a little outside help.
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Alternative paths to peace
Softly spoken Paul James likes a challenge. Although, when a couple of delegates walked out of his Middle-East summit – shouting in response to an address they felt to be inaccurate and demeaning – he may have wondered what he was doing, a few days before Christmas, nearly 20,000 kilometres from home.
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Breathing easy
Thanks to stringent cigarette advertising regulations and high-profile quit campaigns, Australia’s adult smoking rate fell from 34 per cent in 1980 to 19 per cent in 2007. Yet the fallout continues.
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Chairing the revolution
Rugby is a hard, physically demanding game. Fast-paced, a lot of body contact, with players frequently thrown to the ground. But when it comes to the disabled version played in wheelchairs would the description still fit?
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Children of the evolution
Take an overcrowded hospital in Vietnam, a group of dedicated RMIT students and staff on both sides of the equator, mix them together and what do you get? New friends and a long-term partnership that will make a difference to the lives of Vietnamese families.
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Cities at the speed of light
China is currently the world’s powerhouse of urban growth and manufacturing prowess. Like Britain in the days of the first industrial revolution, there are pros and cons associated with holding this title.
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Home-brand high technology
A poor mother, drawing from a well contaminated with arsenic and fluoride. A young man, living beside a factory that pumps effluent into his local river. These are the people who are front of mind for Professor Suresh Bhargava and the international team of researchers he has brought together.
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In living nanocolour
Imagine a world where paint doesn’t fade. Research into nanopigment technology could soon make colour fading in paint, plastics, textiles, glass and ceramics a thing of the past. And it will be non-toxic and environmentally friendly.
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Mastering design
A former lepers’ hospital in Belgium might not seem the most fertile place for innovative design practice and extending and sharing knowledge.
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Natural born pain killers
For the one in five Australians of working age suffering from serious chronic pain, the options are strictly limited. There’s morphine and... well, there’s morphine.
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Sky’s the limit
When you think of Moe in Victoria’s Gippsland, images of mining, power generation and farming come to mind. Yet for Jason Seris, who was born and grew up there, these aren’t the images that filled his younger years.
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Smoke signals
In California, firefighters have declared that there is no longer a bushfire season. They prefer instead to talk about periods of low and high risk - with the high-risk season extending much longer than before.
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The China syndrome
Despite sluggish business activity in the US and early hints of a slowdown in China, the next year bodes well for economic growth in our region.
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The ties that bind
Forty-nine per cent of RMIT academics come from overseas, bringing valuable cultural, industry and educational links. Three life stories reveal a diversity of experience.
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Winds of change
Artist Cameron Robbins relies on the energy of nature to power his complex and intricate drawing machines, but in Shanghai he discovered a spirit that could move more than his art.
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Workers of the world
The suave banker wears a 100 per cent Egyptian cotton shirt, designed in France and made in Italy. He politely receives your application, promising "support 24 hours a day, seven days a week". The shirt is made by Chinese workers and the call centre is in India.
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