Reclaiming connection: how a new open-source project aims to help place-based communities to thrive
Plenary | Wed 22 Jan 3:45 p.m.–4:30 p.m.
Presented by
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Tamara's diverse career spanning nearly three decades has shaped her into a multifaceted professional with a passion for helping people and communities. Her journey has taken her through various roles and industries, including in hospitality, retail, investment banking, consultancy and the public sector in Australia and in the UK. Most recently, Tamara has been leading teams and working as project manager and business analyst to design, build and implement system enhancements and process improvements to support best practice program delivery in a complex operating environment.
Through her winding career and life experiences, she discovered an entrepreneurial flair and a passion for solving social issues – particularly how the right business model, powered by the right philosophy and technology, can help to tackle disadvantage and create a thriving, more just and equitable world.
Tamara believes that assembling groups of multi-disciplinary skilled and passionate individuals with a common motivation and a clear mission can deliver powerful social change and literally change the world. She is the founder and driving force behind the My Community initiative and currently resides in Ballarat, Victoria, with her partner, Andrew, and their Airedale terrier, Tungsten.
Abstract
Tamara and her team are working to establish an ethical and sustainable open-source platform called ‘My Community’. The platform aims to empower place-based communities to positively connect, collaborate, share and find local knowledge and information to support community wellbeing and participation, economic sustainability, social cohesion and resilience. By creating open-source digital infrastructure that improves local connection and collaboration, the team’s goal is to help unlock latent social potential and enable communities and their people to thrive into the future.
The project was conceived to help address growing isolation and loneliness issues, however, it quickly became apparent that there are many interrelated social, economic, environmental and wellbeing issues and opportunities that could (at least in part) be addressed through improving local community connection. This includes:
- improving community physical and mental health and wellbeing outcomes
- combatting social issues such as sexism and racism and reducing social polarisation
- supporting community organisations and not-for-profits to promote their work and attract volunteers and financial support
- helping create a shared sense of local identity and belonging
- building social cohesion and resilience, and
- bolstering economic and environmental sustainability for local areas.
The team are also motivated to address the increasing concern of technology ‘addiction’, particularly for young people who have never known life without their devices. We know the way big social media is designing their algorithms is causing huge amounts of harm and disconnecting us from the fundamental things that enrich our lives and make them meaningful. The My Community platform aims to address this by creating a site that helps meet our individual and collective needs and aids us to thrive as human beings.
The team is close to finalising our strategy and business plan and aims to start stakeholder engagement in early 2025. Our plan is to partner with organisations with common goals and objectives to build momentum and support for our business case and start to seek funding, begin prototyping and planning a proposed pilot.
A major challenge to date has been settling on a final scope for the initial platform as there are so many social issues/opportunities the site could help to address. We’re now focused on identifying the greatest ‘market gaps’ for communities and aiming to address those first to attract a sustainable user base.
We believe that there is a critical need for a platform such as My Community in today’s world to ensure that real-life community and connection is protected, valued, cultivated, understood and is able to effectively ‘compete’ with that of the online world.
Finding the right core team members, collaborators and partners is another key challenge for us. To achieve our vision, we need a passionate, motivated and multi-disciplinary skilled community to help us design and build it from the ground up... which is where we hope that you will come in!
Tamara and her team are working to establish an ethical and sustainable open-source platform called ‘My Community’. The platform aims to empower place-based communities to positively connect, collaborate, share and find local knowledge and information to support community wellbeing and participation, economic sustainability, social cohesion and resilience. By creating open-source digital infrastructure that improves local connection and collaboration, the team’s goal is to help unlock latent social potential and enable communities and their people to thrive into the future. The project was conceived to help address growing isolation and loneliness issues, however, it quickly became apparent that there are many interrelated social, economic, environmental and wellbeing issues and opportunities that could (at least in part) be addressed through improving local community connection. This includes: - improving community physical and mental health and wellbeing outcomes - combatting social issues such as sexism and racism and reducing social polarisation - supporting community organisations and not-for-profits to promote their work and attract volunteers and financial support - helping create a shared sense of local identity and belonging - building social cohesion and resilience, and - bolstering economic and environmental sustainability for local areas. The team are also motivated to address the increasing concern of technology ‘addiction’, particularly for young people who have never known life without their devices. We know the way big social media is designing their algorithms is causing huge amounts of harm and disconnecting us from the fundamental things that enrich our lives and make them meaningful. The My Community platform aims to address this by creating a site that helps meet our individual and collective needs and aids us to thrive as human beings. The team is close to finalising our strategy and business plan and aims to start stakeholder engagement in early 2025. Our plan is to partner with organisations with common goals and objectives to build momentum and support for our business case and start to seek funding, begin prototyping and planning a proposed pilot. A major challenge to date has been settling on a final scope for the initial platform as there are so many social issues/opportunities the site could help to address. We’re now focused on identifying the greatest ‘market gaps’ for communities and aiming to address those first to attract a sustainable user base. We believe that there is a critical need for a platform such as My Community in today’s world to ensure that real-life community and connection is protected, valued, cultivated, understood and is able to effectively ‘compete’ with that of the online world. Finding the right core team members, collaborators and partners is another key challenge for us. To achieve our vision, we need a passionate, motivated and multi-disciplinary skilled community to help us design and build it from the ground up... which is where we hope that you will come in!