David Hood

Free Agent

Doing Something Good

"bringing together people and organisations to build better futures for all, together"

Optimist. Instigator. Facilitator. Explorer. After working and volunteering in the not-for-profit space for almost 15 years, a few years ago I started to explore new ways of making change and enabling others to build better futures for themselves and their communities. After seeing and participating in amazing initiatives utilising the power of the web to bring diverse groups of people together and cocreate socially innovative solutions to our most pressing social and environmental issues, I started to wonder, "What can I do? What can I offer?" From a year at the School for Social Entrepreneurs in 2011, the idea for Collaboratory Melbourne unfolded. The Collaboratory Melbourne, is a prototype for a replicable and scalable platform of social activities and development programs, for networks of people and organisations wanting to build better futures for all, together. Our intention is to provide experiences and the space for Collaboratory Melbourne members to build collective awareness, develop capability and attract resources to enable collaborative, sustainable and socially innovative solutions to society's grand challenges and 'wicked problems'. We run monthly meetups with special guests covering topics including social enterprise, community building, social change, government 2.0 and social innovation - giving members the opportunity to connect, explore new concepts, develop ideas and identify opportunities to collaborate. We also run skillshares, weekend project development jams, and are currently developing an open source knowledge base on processes and frameworks for group collaboration (online and face-to-face), project management and human-centred service design. I'm Interested in large group facilitation, community development, systems thinking, collaboration, design thinking, technology, social media, innovation, communications and social enterprise.