Leading the strategy and implementation for how digital technology can help connect social innovators across Canada find each other, learn faster together and collectivise their impact. Core project is The Common Platform, and online commons where individuals, groups and network can collide in meaningful ways to catalyze systems change. Key question I'm holding in this work : If Canadian social innovators had more visibility of and access to each other, will this assist them in strategically aligning for action across organizations and geographies to amplify their impact?

The Enspiral Foundation connects people and companies in the Enspiral network. Committed members are the stewards of the Foundation, each taking responsibility to grow the network, develop our businesses and create the community benefits that underpin our work.

On the precipice of huge disruption by automation technologies, there is a pressing need to relook at the role of humans in the workplace, and the role of ‘work’ in society.The Future of Work is Human advocates a human-centred design approach to the big trends observed in the field of ‘work’ : + the breakdown of the narrative of long-term job stability, instead needing to prepare for increasing disruption and adaptability+ a huge rise of independent workers (over 30% of workers in Canada are now in non-standard employment)+ the looming threat of automation as AI and robotic technologies advance+ a recognition that traditional (hierarchical) power structures inhibit engagement, creativity and innovation+ an epidemic of illness (including depression and anxiety) which can be traced to root causes of deep social isolation and disconnection from meaningful contribution in the world.See https://humanfutureofwork.ca/ for more information.

Social Innovation Canada is weaving together a package of supports for the people pioneering solutions to the toughest challenges of our time to align for impact.As program manager I’ll be helping innovators in every sector and place in Canada find the people, resources and knowledge they need - creating a stronger ecosystem.

Percolab’s mission is to support and reinforce participatory and collaborative practices within organizations and communities so that they may better respond to complex issues in service of the common good. Since 2007, we have worked in the domains of social and organizational innovation through practices that mobilize and harness the collective intelligence and collaborative capacity of groups. My role consists of a mixture of visual design, process design and project management, business development and running trainings.

The Food Resilience Network connects the efforts between diverse stakeholders (government, municipality, non-profit, business, voluntary) to rebuild Christchurch as a food resilient city following the major earthquakes of 2010-11. My role has consisted of leading the network through a process of becoming a legally-incorporated organisation with a high democratic operating model, and subsequently leading the coordination of the Otakaro Orchard project - New Zealand’s first urban food hub. This role consists of collaborative design-process management, stakeholder engagement, fundraising and sponsorship, plus financial and project management. At the completion of my leadership of the project, we'd raised the first $1M to complete the park and building and had established a strong community of partners to carry the project through to completion.

The Festival of Transitional Architecture (FESTA) is a biennial event which seeks to engage a wider range of stakeholders in acts of ‘city-making’ through a long weekend of events. In my role as Major Project Lead, I coordinated the largest event called Lean Means, working with 7 different universities from around NZ and Australia to create 20 architectural installations out of waste materials to create a temporary city built and deconstructed over 5 days and open for one night. This involved working between material suppliers, universities, engineers, creative director SUPERUSE, plus the event construction and production teams, landowners and other stakeholders to ensure everything came together in the timeframe. Over 16,000 people attended the event. I also produced all the festival graphics and publicity materials.

We work with organisations to engage people around their causes – leveraging the power of technology, community and creativity. Our collective believes that culture is at the heart of solving the immense social and environmental challenges of our time, and that communities are where this culture is held and can be changed.Purposive designs processes and conducts experiments and interventions aimed at shifting behaviours and attitudes. We activate communities around social missions and work to create the digital, social and physical infrastructure to support them. We believe that building these communities of purpose then connecting them is what can create lasting social change.

The Waitakere Festival was first held in 2010 on the last day of Waitakere City before it was amalgamated into the Auckland 'Super City'. It was a grassroots proclamation that the unique culture and identity of the West would not be subsumed, but instead flourish through us holding it as citizens. We pulled together a free music festival in 5 weeks with no money, but buckets of community passion and generosity. It was intended to be a one-off event. However the momentum created by activating the community was so strong that it has become an annual event.In 2011 and 2012 we refocussed the event to not just reflect the past and present of the West, but to actively work to build its future too. The whole thing is an exercise in community engagement; inspiring individuals, businesses and organisations to get involved in creating on one day a demonstration of what we want our part of the city to be. A big part of that is to support projects and organisations that make this place great like stream restoration initiative Project Twin Streams by attracting a new breed of volunteers and champions to their work.

Taia Design has been a part-time project of mine since 2004. The focus has been working with community and public good organisations to help them unlock the full potential of the work they are doing by packaging it in great branding and communications. It has always made sense to me to include clients in the work process - both to make sure we get it right every time and to educate and up-skill them to be able to create great materials themselves to make their budgets go as far as possible. Through experience working with these organisations in developing visual identities and communications materials, I have developed an in-depth understanding of their communications challenges and priorities. This has lead to working with clients on a more strategic level on things from designing organisational models to communications frameworks to social enterprise development.Clients: NZ Historic Places Trust, The U.S. Embassy of Wellington, Inspiring Communities, LIFEWISE, The Auckland Community Development Alliance, Community Waitakere, WAVES Trust, NZ Community Economic Development Network, Social Development Partners, The Auckland Communities Foundation, MPHS Community Initiative, Project Twin Streams.

The Projects | Auckland was a collaboration between myself and Tim Gregory after we founded the Waitakere Festival together. Our work was centred around opportunities in Auckland in 2011 to have input into the newly created Auckland 'Super City' including its 30-year Spatial Plan. We believed in the potential for visionary projects to transform the city and over the year worked on 3 projects :1. Concepting project ‘Room to Grow’ - a behaviour-change action to mainstream the local food movement in Auckland; launching the Mayor’s Auckland Eco City vision. This project was pitched to the Auckland Mayor, Deputy Mayor and their officials and led to The Projects | Auckland taking a lead role in the Auckland Food Alliance.2. Consulting to Colenso BBDO to inform their pitch for the Auckland Council including writing and delivering a presentation that covered an introduction to the machine that is the Auckland Council, insight into the changing role of local government, what the Big Society initiative in the UK could mean for Auckland and the role of digital democracy in citizen renaissance.3. Spearheading the Auckland Food Alliance’s campaign to engage key stakeholders across business, council and community in finding a common agenda towards a new paradigm for Auckland’s food system. This included in-depth research into global happenings in food system innovation and the local food movement and devising a Shared Value strategy for renewing Auckland’s food system.

Atlas Communications is a leading creative communications agency specialising in behaviour-change interventions. Major client is Project Twin Streams, an award-winning stream restoration and community development project in Waitakere City. My work included:Streambanks and Beyond: The Project Twin Streams Seminar - Programme design and implementation, promotion and marketing collateral, event management, facilitation of presentation creation and deliveryProject Twin Streams Website - Creation of brief for web designer and supervision of design process, content creation including copy-writing and image selection, sitemap and functionality design and project supervision. Design and delivery of social media outputs including Facebook, Twitter, blog, Flickr and Google Maps.Project Twin Streams Value Case - Supervision of design process and execution for animations by subcontractor, design of Powerpoint presentation, diagrams and illustrations.Redesign of Atlas Communications website including look/feel, image selection, copy-writing, and functionality.

Lead Urban Design research project to determine potential effects on historic heritage in Wellington by the proposed Ngauranga to Airport Transport Strategy; mapping the historic heritage along the transport corridor to assist planners in preparing for these developments and identifying areas of risk.

Role involved stakeholder awareness and understanding of the Public Transport Management Act, policy recommendations for enhancing the accessibility of public transport, ministerial briefings on economic value of public transport and walking and cycling infrastructure investment.

Role involved day-to-day stakeholder relations, creation of marketing and promotions collateral, event coordination, paper and digital information management, assisting with preparation of evidence for Council and Environment Court hearings, assisting heritage planner on designing and illustrating urban design solutions for development proposals.