 My name is Bilkis Hejes and I'm a dance producer and critic. I'm Malaysian but my mother is Australian and so I spend a lot of my childhood holidays in Australia and I also spent four years living in Melbourne. Two years of that doing study and two years working. My father Hejes Kasturi is a renowned Malaysian architect. He was born in Singapore and grew up very poor during the Second World War. He was extremely fortunate to get a scholarship from the Colombo Plan to study architecture in Australia. My mother was here in the mid-70s on an Australian Young Ambassadors programme and my parents met here and got married. I immersed myself in the social fabrics of that kind of culture which is foreign to me altogether but I was eager to learn because I was so curious about everything that's going on and that gave me really a full life that I can appreciate even until today. Australia is a really popular destination for Malaysian students because it's very close, it's reasonably affordable and universities have a really good reputation. My advice is to really take advantage of the non-scholastic opportunities that Australia has to offer. So to go out and experience the art, to experience the sport, to hang out in ways that Australians hang out. Australia has given me the practical training on design of some offices, houses even and building and when you come back that training just continue with that. So I've been involved with many iconic buildings and that has to me a cultural value. The great contribution of Australia to me giving that and many of these people including me, scholars come back hold very high position in this country. I feel that you're not only earning a living that I've been fortunate in a way to get my profession but I'm giving something to my nations, building up the nations part of it and this is if some of us can do it, we should do it. My family has very deep links to Australia because of the wonderful good fortune that my father had to get a scholarship which really lifted him out of poverty and enabled him to really achieve dreams that he couldn't have even had as a child growing up very poor in Singapore. We've always felt as a family that it's our responsibility, our obligation to give back to Australia and also to help strengthen the relationship between Australia and Malaysia that has benefited our family so much.