Torrens University nominated for MYOB Education Partner of the Year

The MYOB Education Partner of the Year Award recognises education providers that have gone above and beyond to help their students succeed in 2022/23.

The Social Enterprise Hub initiative nomination

The Social Enterprise Hub is an initiative established by Torrens University Australia as a student-led consultancy to facilitate project-based learning with social impact. 

Students from diverse education programs, including accounting, analytics, business administration, and information systems, form teams of up to six people. The teams deliver a specific service to purpose-led organisations that can include not-for-profit organisations, social enterprises, and other for-profit organisations with social impact agendas.

The innovative collaboration with MYOB was led by Dr Hayden McDonald, Program Director Master of Business Analytics program at Torrens University Australia.

“The Social Enterprise Hub aligned with MYOB to manage the volume of work performed by consultancy students and to streamline business operations,” said Dr McDonald.

“Students were responsible for managing the entire MYOB platform in collaboration with an industry-project lead, an academic staff member with extensive industry experience.”

“The collaboration is a global first, unlike any other educational program as students are managing the actual business operations of the Social Enterprise Hub. The consultants work with real clients to deliver real projects for industry,” said Dr McDonald.

As acknowledged by the Manager of the Social Enterprise Hub, Peter Graves, “it is critical that our consultancy students provide clients with quality outcomes. So, MYOB is an important tool to drive the standards in the Social Enterprise Hub."

Collaboration between The Social Enterprise Hub and MYOB

The MYOB platform enables client details, projects, students, and services provided through the Social Enterprise Hub to be recorded and managed.

The lead academic consultant for the project, Ray Attanayake, suggested that “the collaboration between the Social Enterprise Hub and MYOB provided an unheralded opportunity to teach students technical and smart skills that make them job ready.”

Ray has extensive academic and industry experience including Chief Financial Officer, Emissary Counsel, and Board Director. He has been nominated for the MYOB Educator the Year award in recognition of his role providing students with on-the-job coaching and training as they deliver services to Social Enterprise Hub clients.

The coveted awards will be judged by a panel of selected MYOB executives and senior leadership team, with finalists announced on 20 September and winners announced publicly online on 16 October.

The prize includes a trip to Melbourne to visit the MYOB Headquarters and the opportunity to learn directly from the MYOB team, along with an exclusive dinner hosted by MYOB’s CEO, Paul Robson, and General Manager (SME), Emma Fawcett, and an awards ceremony and professional photography opportunities.