In an executive team meeting at the Sydney offices of his employer of the time – a large multinational tech company – Michael Combs looked around the room and asked ‘Where are the Indigenous people?’.

The rest of the team fumbled – they thought he was joking. He thought he needed to do something different.

In 2009, CareerTrackers was born – a national non-profit with the goal of creating pathways and support systems for Indigenous young adults to attend and graduate from university, with high marks, industry experience and bright professional futures.

We’re now in our 10th year, and hundreds of our participants have graduated. Each and every member of our Alumni community is employed in a professional role, with a median salary in their first year of $62,000. By 2020, that Alumni community will be made up of 1073 highly educated Indigenous professionals.

The success of the program has been recognised by employers, governments and, most importantly, Indigenous communities throughout Australia. CareerTrackers students complete university at higher rates than their non-Indigenous peers, and 95% of Alumni are in full-time employment in their field within three months of graduation.

The underpinning philosophy at CareerTrackers is ‘Students at the Core’. This means every decision we make in the delivery of the program focuses on the benefit to our students. We are proud to have built a community of CareerTrackers interns and Alumni that span thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households across Australia.

We see prosperous futures for our students and Alumni, who are quickly becoming leaders in their careers and communities.