In just a few short months Bianca Hunt has gone from life as a university student in Brisbane to being an international co-CEO attending meetings in New York.
The QUT business and creative industries graduate applied for her dream job just before she finished uni last year – a 12-month gig as co-CEO for AIME. The not-for-profit organisation builds a mentoring bridge between uni and high school for disadvantaged kids across Australia and is currently expanding to Uganda and South Africa.
Bianca won the coveted co-CEO role and is now living in Sydney and “shadowing” AIME CEO and founder Jack Manning Bancroft throughout 2018.
The job has already involved some amazing international travel – she started the year visiting New York and Harvard University.
Bianca Hunt Co CEOIntroducing Bianca Hunt. AIME Co CEO for 2018.
Posted by AIME on Thursday, February 15, 2018
Bianca’s passion for education stems from her family.
Her mum and dad were both first-in-family to go to university – despite never graduating from high school – and studied as mature age students while raising Bianca and her siblings.
“From a very young age it was embedded into myself and to my siblings that education is the key to succeeding and making a better life for ourselves,” she said.
“Growing up and having the opportunity to be able to see my parents graduate from university was something that I will never forget and led me to pursue my dream of graduating university.”
In 2010 QUT became the first university in Queensland to join AIME as a partner and start matching its students one-on-one with high school teenagers.
One of those teenagers that first year happened to be Bianca Hunt – back when she was in Year 9 at Wavell Heights State High on Brisbane’s northside.
her AIME colleagues and Star Wars
actor John Boyega (in sunglasses).
Bianca went on to not only study a double degree at QUT – Bachelor of Business (Management) / Bachelor of Creative Industries (Entertainment Industries) – but also become an AIME mentor herself.
She spent two years working as a presenter, then mentor leader for AIME’s north Brisbane district, working with 1346 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander high school students during that time.
Bianca’s first three months as AIME co-CEO has also included an out-of-this-world experience meeting Star Wars actor John Boyega (Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens) during a visit to AIME’s first school in Redfern to learn more about Australia’s Indigenous culture.
“This is more than just a job, this is kids’ lives we’re working with,” Bianca said.
“There are 80 people working at AIME. It’s going to take a lot more than that to change the world, that’s why it matters to bring those in power with us.
“From NYC to Star Wars to new realities. We will travel wherever it takes to show kids they can do whatever it takes.”
QUT Media contacts:
- Mechelle McMahon, media@qut.edu.au
- (After hours) Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901 or media@qut.edu.au
