Quick Facts
Biography
Dimity Dornan AO is a speech pathologist, author, and businesswoman in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. She is the founder of the Hear and Say Centre for Deaf Children (6 July 1992) and helped initiate newborn hearing screening in Queensland hospitals, the first such program in Australia. She has received Australian of the Year for Queensland in 2003, and the Suncorp Queenslander of the Year in 2010.
Dornan has been attributed for her ground-breaking auditory verbal work which has assisted families and hearing impaired children throughout Queensland. The Hear and Say Centre is now a global Hearing Health Education and Development Program with six centres across Queensland, including a telepractice for remote regions of Queensland.
Dornan is the founder of Bionics Queensland (BioniQ) which was established to promote the development of the human bionic industry in Queensland.
Dornan is also the founder of Human Bionics Interface, which an international network of bionics researchers, clinicians, businesses that share projects to delivery bionics solutions.
In 2017, Dornan was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame.
Awards
- Churchill Fellowship 1992
- Member of the Order of Australia 1998
- Fellow of Speech Pathology Australia 1999
- Australian Medical Association (AMA) Award for Distinction for Services to Medicine 1999
- Australian of the Year for Queensland 2003
- Ernst & Young Australian Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2005
- Suncorp Queenslander of the Year 2010
- University of Queensland Alumnus of the Year 2011
- Queensland Greats 2013
- Dame of Honour 2013
- Order of St John 2013
- Officer of the Order of Australia 2014
- Lord Mayor's Business Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award 2014
- McCullough Robertson Life Sciences Queensland Industry Excellence Award 2015
- Women in Technology Life Sciences Award 2016
- Brisbane Women in Business Award (Innovation and Technology) 2016
- Women in Technology Life Sciences Outstanding Achievement Award 2016
- Women in Business Innovation and Technology Award 2016
- Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame 2017