James Debono

B Engineering (Advanced)

James Debono is currently studying a Bachelor of Engineering (Advanced) with a major in Megatronics at the University of Western Sydney. He says he’s ‘always had an interest in electrical circuits, general design and especially computer aided design,’ and says he hopes to work in ‘product development or systems development, not just the same automation of everyday tasks, but creating new products and services - hopefully in a field like telecommunications or biomedicine.’

James Debono says his involvement in the UWS Aspire project has been a really positive experience, with ‘heaps of leadership opportunities, and occasions to meet people that will probably be really handy to know in the future.’ He says he enjoys being a leader at the university and in his community, because it ‘allows you to get your own objective through, while at the same time helping the viewpoints and ideas of others to show through in a project.’ 

James is no stranger to leadership roles - since high school at Xavier College at Llandilo, he’s been active in a variety of leadership activities, including his school’s Student Representative Council and Debating team.  He says he liked being involved in these kinds of programs because ‘it’s great to have a say in the activities the school was involved in, like running sporting activities and fundraising and stuff like that, while debating was really great to work on my communication skills and public speaking.’

In September 2009, James will be putting all these skills to the test - participating in the National Student Leadership Forum.  He says it’s something he says would ‘not have had any chance of doing without being involved in the UWS Aspire program.’

As a leader, James says his main strengths are his organizational skills, as well as ‘an ability to pull in all the parts of a project together. To sort of step back and see what needs to be done as a whole.’

James says that for leaders, a strong moral conviction it something that he really admires, as well as being something that is ‘important to keep in mind with everything you’re doing.’  He puts forward Albert Einstein as someone he considers a great leader because of this moral stability and conviction, ‘in World War Two he was pressured by the German government to help with the war effort, but he refused and instead only wanted to work with science towards human betterment.’