Student Journal - The Kalgoorlie Student Chapter at the Underground Operators Conference

The end of March marked the beginning of one of my most anticipated events of the year. The BHP Underground Operators Conference for 2023. This conference – although probably not targeted at young, broke, inexperienced university students – was a gold mine of awesome people, experiences and memories that I know I will never forget.

Our trip began on 26 March, catching the 11pm ‘red-eye’ flight to Brisbane, where we touched down in Brisbane for the first time. I was not alone; accompanied by Marcos Da Silva, Nick Markovic, and Alex Quigg, we quickly made our way to our hotel in the heart of Brisbane and grabbed some well-deserved breakfast before heading to the conference in the morning.

We were able to mingle with plenty of important people, but naturally we were absolutely knackered from our overnight flight, so took some time to get off our feet and listen to some of the papers and concepts being presented in the morning of Monday.

This was followed by more mingling, socialising and networking, before heading home to have a rest and return for the evening networking, which was a great night filled with great people. Tuesday was filled with more socialising and networking, with the day being finished with some awe-inspiring speeches from the headline Mark Mathews, proving the ‘cherry on top’ to an incredible gala dinner.

Unfortunately, we had to depart Brisbane in the early hours of Wednesday morning, but nevertheless we absolutely capitalised on the two action packed days we had in Brisbane.

The highlight of the event for me simply had to be the networking that occurred throughout our time in Brisbane. The quality of conversations and the enthusiasm of the people we were talking to blew me away and it makes me very excited to join the industry soon. Experiences like this remind me of how lucky I am to be a member of AusIMM and to be fortunate enough to capitalise on these opportunities when they arise.

Mark Mathews and Stephen Coughlan certainly will stick in my mind as two different but equally memorable speakers who left their mark on me and changed the way I see the world and its opportunities.

I can’t wait to attend more of these events in the future!

AusIMM was pleased to partner with BHP to enable the attendance of some of the future talent in the resources sector.