Empowering Women, Powering Energy: Maya Muchlis’s Journey with WiME

Maya Muchlis is making a significant impact in the world of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). As founder and Executive Director of Women in Mining & Energy (WiME) Indonesia, she is applying her education experience to build opportunities for young women in sectors long dominated by men.

Education in Australia: Building Knowledge, Confidence, and Networks

In 2007, Maya was awarded an Australia Awards Scholarship to pursue a Master of Environmental Management and Sustainability at the University of South Australia. Despite scholarship opportunities being limited in her hometown of Makassar, Maya successfully applied and left for Adelaide.

‘Education builds not only knowledge but also how we think. My experience in Australia shaped my mindset and gave me the confidence to explore new opportunities when I came home,’ she shared.

When Maya returned in 2008, she was recruited into Australian-based mining companies operating in Indonesia, including BHP Billiton and Stanmore Resources.

Nearly a decade later in 2016, Maya was selected for an Australia Awards Short Courses, held at the University of Sydney. The course on Organisational Leadership and Management Practices for Disabled People’s Organisations deepened her appreciation of inclusive leadership and re-introduced her to the Australia Awards alumni community. During this period that Maya and a group of colleagues began to seriously discuss creating an organisation dedicated to women in extractive industries.

By early 2019, they launched WiME Indonesia, with a mission to educate women and advocate for policy change. Since then, WiME has run mentorship programmes, created online discussion forums such as Ruang XY, established mental health support spaces, and partnered with both private companies and government to advance diversity and inclusion.

In 2024, she joined an Australia Awards Short Course on mainstreaming Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) in Indonesia’s energy transition, hosted by Griffith University.

‘The GEDSI course gave me fresh insights. The most valuable part was the network—with lecturers and with fellow participants. In mining and energy, this is very powerful. That is why I joined,’ Maya explained.

In her Award project, An Online Collaborative Learning for Eastern Indonesia’s Future Female Green Energy Leaders, Maya focused on empowering young women to take part in the country’s energy transition. The initiative engaged 20 young participants eager to build careers in renewable energy. Five of the 20 participants secured internships or jobs in the power sector, while others built networks that will support their career aspirations.

Building Regional Connections: A Cross-Country Mentorship Platform

The networks Maya built during her studies and short courses in Australia have been central to WiME’s ability to expand beyond Indonesia. In 2025, those connections led to a pilot cross-country mentorship collaboration with the Women in Mining Network New South Wales and Women in Mining Sri Lanka.

The initiative was supported by seed funding from an Australian-backed NDC programme, which allowed WiME and its partners to test the idea of a regional mentoring exchange. Each country contributed five mentors and five mentees, creating a pool of 30 participants. The approach involved mentees from Indonesia being paired with mentors from Australia or Sri Lanka, and Indonesian mentors guided participants from the other two countries.

The outputs of this pilot are already visible. Thirty women across three countries have taken part in structured mentoring, exchanged perspectives on their respective mining and energy sectors, and built international contacts that may lead to future internships or employment. For WiME Indonesia, the programme has strengthened its role as a bridge-builder in regional gender equality efforts. For the partners in Australia and Sri Lanka, it has provided valuable comparative insights, showing how inclusion challenges can be both shared and distinctive across different national contexts.