“A celebration of great work happening in Australia, an exploration of the ideas, people, and technologies driving change,and an invitation for everyone to get involved in creating a better future.”
What is Changemakers Festival?
The Changemakers Festival is a nationwide celebration of the great work happening in our community, an exploration of the ideas, techniques and technologies that are driving this change, and an invitation for everyone to get involved in creating a better future for our communities and our world.
Over 10 action-packed days, more than 10,000 people will attend an event that will help them create more change in the world – it might be a seminar on how to attract investment and funding to a new social enterprise, or it might be a workshop on innovation in service design for local government. It might be a film festival raising awareness of human trafficking, a fundraiser for orphans in Cambodia, a Google hangout about using social media for change, or a keynote from one of the world’s leading thinkers on social innovation.
The Changemakers Festival brings together a diverse community of people passionate about making a difference, wherever they are, however they can. It’s a platform to showcase new and innovative ideas, to share our experiences, inspire one another, learn from our failures and celebrate our successes.
The very first Changemakers Festival took place over a weekend in late 2012 in Sydney, and was instigated by the late Steve Lawrence – one of Australia’s pioneers of social innovation and social enterprise. The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) took the Festival national in 2013, and following the success of that first Australia-wide Festival, we’re looking forward to an even bigger and better Festival in 2014.
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Why Changemakers Festival?
Over the last 10 years, Australia has exploded as a hub of social change. Driven by technology, and inspired by local and international success stories, the social innovation community is starting to tackle some of our toughest social challenges and answer some of our biggest questions.
What is the good life? What is Australia’s place in our region and the world? How can we respond to climate change, to refugees, to the changing nature of employment and family? The Changemakers Festival brings these ideas out in the open and encourages strong discussion, cross-sector collaboration, and concrete action to drive social change.
How does it work?
The Changemakers Festival is an “open access” or “distributed” festival – anyone in Australia can create an event and request to be added to the festival line-up.
Hundreds of events will be hosted by leading thinkers and local organisations in every state and territory. We’ll be featuring high-profile speakers as well as webinars, start-up weekends, workshops, conferences and more.
Who should host an event?
If you’ve got a great event that would be of value to people seeking to create social change, we’d love to you be a part of the Changemakers Festival. You might be working as a social entrepreneur and keen to share your experience, or perhaps you’re a marketing and communications guru wanting to help social startups position themselves more effectively. Maybe you know an amazing speaker with the ability to inspire and motivate people to change the world?
It could be a brand new idea, or something you’ve already planned. All you need to do is schedule it between 17-26 October 2014 and register it with us, and once we’ve approved it, you’re in! Your event will be featured on our website and we’ll send you a kit with all our promotional tools to help you get more people along.
Who Should attend?
Anyone looking to learn more about social change and social innovation should come along to the Changemakers Festival. There’s such a wide array of events that you’re bound to find at least one, if not dozens of events that can help you improve your skills, build relationships or find new ways to tackle social problems. You don’t have to be working professionally in the social space to come along – one of the great things about the Festival is that it draws together people right across Australian society: people in business, government, academia, NGOs and social enterprise. We’re so much more effective when we work together – get involved!
Who is behind the festival?
The Changemakers Festival is an initiative of The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI), a national organisation working to help tackle some of Australia’s toughest social challenges and increase the innovation capability of the social sector.
The Changemakers Festival is just one way we’re working to bring people together, share ideas and skills, and raise the profile of social innovation and the great work being done across the country.
For more information go to http://changemakersfestival.org
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The Change Makers Festival Conference Brings Hope for Social Change
