Veronica Stewart-Monro, a talented singer and vocal coach, is a Google nut. She often uses the world wide web to find out about competitions and other music-related information that she then passes on to her students. But one sunny day a few months ago, she came across a global talent search run by cosmetics giant, Avon.
There was a slight snag: she only found out about it on the very last day that Avon would accept video submissions. Not to worry, Veronica plonked herself in front of her Mac and sent them a short clip of her singing 'You make me feel (like a natural woman)'.
Out of nearly 6,000 video submissions, the judges of the talent quest, which includes Philippines' legendary artist Lea Salonga and Australia's own Delta Goodrem, liked her audition tape so much to fly her to Hong Kong as one of the Round 1 finalists for the search.
From the combined votes of the public and the judges, Veronica made it through to Round 1, Round 2 and, this week, found out she was one of the top 25 semi-final candidates. Next week, Veronica will be flown by Avon to Hollywood to record two videos, work with Grammy Award winner David Pack and perform in front of a live audience.
"I am very, very grateful and feel very, very thankful to be a part of this journey and to represent Australia ... I won't let our country down and will do my best," she said.
To find out more about the talent search and Veronica's journey, check out her profile on http://www.avonvoices.com/en2/profile/knp4We.
Public voting is open from July 22 to August 26 through www.avonvoices.com and the more votes Veronica gets, the closer she is to making her dreams come true. Voting only takes a few minutes so we encourage the Filipino-Australian community to support an extremely talented and beautiful artist. Go Veronica!
Why The Australian Filipina is asking your help to vote for Veronica
We want Veronica to win the Avon Voices search because she is a great role model and an inspiration to women around the world, particularly young women. A self-confessed 'hippie', Veronica cares about the environment and has taken on to doing the little things that make a difference. She built a compost/recycling bin at the back of her house and has her own herb garden, which she tends alongside her young daughter and son.
Like most, if not all, women of the 21st century, Veronica wears many hats: she's an ambitious entrepreneur who enrolled herself to a business mentorship program, runs her own voice coaching business from home and volunteers at the local radio station. She also gets involved in many projects designed around raising the profile of young Filipino singers, dancers and entertainers.
And that's on top of raising two young children, songwriting projects on the side, writing entertainment articles and still finding some time to hang out with her family and friends. A true child of the internet, Veronica also spends way too much time on Facebook, loves entering online competitions on anything and checking out home furniture sales on ebay.
Did I forget to mention her voice?
We hope Veronica makes it to the final six of this talent quest and to do that, we need the community's support.
For now, Hollywood, here she comes!