When Robin Khuda mandated that equal numbers of men and women should be considered for all job openings at his booming data centre company AirTrunk, he did not realise it would lead him to make a record $100 million donation to the University of Sydney.

The gift will develop a pipeline of girls and women from Western Sydney studying science, technology, engineering and maths – the very people he wants to recruit to operate AirTrunk’s giant data centres in Sydney, Melbourne and across Asia.