Leadership Competition

Young, rural, and driven? Country to Canberra’s annual Leadership Competition is accepting entries now!

2025 Leadership Competition winners announced!

After an extremely difficult marking process, Country to Canberra is thrilled to announce the 2025 Leadership Competition Winners!

The seven winners from across regional and rural Australia responded to the question:

“Technology and innovation is redefining the future of gender equality in our rural communities.”

Congratulations to:

NSW: Caitlin Evans of Narrabri.

VIC: Isla McNaughton of Ballarat.

WA: Jessica John of Kununurra

SA: Madison Schell of Port Broughton

NT: Deni Seaniger of Nhulunbuy

TAS: Tyla Burk of Devonport.

QLD: Mariam Nabizada of Toowoomba.

Thank you to everyone who entered the competition. We received a huge number of entries, making it incredibly difficult to select finalists and winners. If you weren’t successful – we encourage you to enter in 2026 and to stay in touch, as we have multiple new opportunities coming soon! We want to do everything we can to help all young rural women and non binary people achieve their goals.

OUR 2025 TOP 15:

NSW

Caitlin Evans
Hannah Alawneh
Sarah Polkinghorne

VIC

Isla McNaughton
Sage Eccles

Jessica John
Alexia Hatto

Madison Schell
Haylie Staunton

Deni Seaniger
Bridgette Evans

TAS

Tyla Burk
Hana Jarvis

QLD

Mariam Nabizada
Caitlin Mara

Winners

See the entries of our amazing previous winners and runners up!

The Prize

Our 2025 Leadership Competition winners will get the following fantastic prize:

All expenses paid four-day Power Trip to Canberra, including:

— Leadership and Empowerment Training

Award-winning Country to Canberra Project Empower workshop to develop an understanding of diversity, build your self-esteem, and learn to apply your values.
Targeted public speaking and presentation workshops from industry professionals.
Personalised leadership coaching and support.

— Networking Opportunities

Q&As with CEOs, industry leaders, and inspiring activists.
Powerful discussions and private meetings with state and federal politicians.
The chance to connect with other incredible like-minded women and non-binary people from all across rural and remote Australia!

— Careers Coaching

An inspiring careers fair, driven by Agrifutures Australia.
Future focused goal setting support from the University of Canberra.

Other incredible perks include:

Access to our exclusive Alumni Network, and additional networking opportunities
A winners’ pack, full of merchandise, resources, information, and goodies!
Winning entries will be published on the Country to Canberra website, as well as by our sponsors and key partners to provide national exposure.

'It's such an amazing program for young women and non-binary people when they want to branch out, experience new things and open themselves up to new things. It gets them to go out of their comfort zone, in ways that not many other programs do.’