On 24th September, the Fogarty Foundation hosted its first Ripple Legacy Night. The evening brought together Scholars, distinguished WA leaders, partners, speakers, and mentors to celebrate a year of leadership, innovation, and social change built through Fogarty Ripple at UWA. Delivered in partnership with The University of Western Australia, Ripple supports UWA’s prestigious Scholars through three programs: Leadership Foundations, Leadership Horizons, and Leadership Legacy. The evening marked the first time Scholars across all three programs shared the stage.

Leadership Foundations: Ripple Roots

First-year Scholars spent Semester 2 on Ripple Roots, a 50-day challenge. Working in groups, they identified an issue facing young people in WA, framed it as a "How might we" question, and took a real-world action in response. Three groups were selected to present on the night. Their actions included:

building a community for first-year university students through a breakfast club
raising confidence among secondary students going through periods of transition
tackling the stigma around sustainability while connecting young people to local environmental initiatives

Hannah Chen, Sally Pang, Hannah Wang and Josh Pitts received the Ripple Effect Award, which recognises the group whose action showed the most potential to extend its impact further.

Leadership Horizons and the Ripple Expand Fund

Leadership Horizons Scholars shared what they have explored this year with support from the Ripple Expand Fund, from technology and innovation showcases in Adelaide and Brisbane to the Perth Biodesign Flagship program. Perth Biodesign Scholars Luke Bradley, Kerry Cao, John Peiris and Lucius Beh reflected on how the program has shaped the way they think about leadership and innovation.

Leadership Legacy: Six visions for Western Australia in 2050

In Leadership Legacy, a select group of Scholars spent five weeks going deep on one challenge facing Western Australia. Each group shared its vision for WA2050 through a short film, which you can watch below.

Breakthru (Callum Jones, Stella Freeman, Joshua Abordi, Levi Nichols, Holly Brown and Kele Readhead) is tackling unequal access to opportunity for Year 10 to 12 students in low socioeconomic, regional and rural communities. Their approach combines free, student-led workshops in schools with a statewide directory of extracurricular opportunities.

Eva Czislowski is building the evidence, funding and systems that make experiences of connection, challenge, reflection and contribution part of growing up in WA, rather than something available to a few.

Perri Edwards is focused on improving young people's understanding of coercive control as WA moves to make it a standalone criminal offence. She plans to pursue PhD research into technology-facilitated coercive control and to advocate for education in schools.

Shantelle Jeyakumar is addressing the gap young Western Australians aged 18 to 24 face as they move into independent dental care. Her proposed free digital navigation resource connects trustworthy oral health information with practical pathways to affordable care.

Jake Mawson is building SIR Labs to lower the cost and complexity of biomedical research. The idea is shared infrastructure, so that the quality of an idea, not the resources behind it, decides whether it can be tested.

Santi Chua and Naveen Nimalan created DigiHealth Explained to help communities with low English fluency understand and navigate digital health platforms. They plan to work with community organisations on a central platform and community-based education sessions.

Each group's work is captured in the WA2050 Manifesto, a collection of six legacies for the future of Western Australia. It maps the core challenge and what sits at its root, a vision for WA in 2050, and the pathway to change the Scholars believe will get there. Read the WA2050 Manifesto

Breakthru received the 2026 Jeremy Cheang Award, which supports a Scholar-led initiative that benefits the wider WA community, with $2,000 in funding to take their workshops and opportunities directory to schools across the state.

The Fogarty Foundation thanks speakers, mentors, and partners who have contributed to Ripple in 2026, and The University of Western Australia for backing the development of WA’s future leaders.