Day
One
8:00AM
ARRIVAL & REGISTRATION
9:00AM
WELCOME
Welcome to Purpose
A warm welcome to Purpose from our MC Matt Wicking and opening remarks by creator of Purpose, Sally Hill.
SPEAKERS
@Porter's Studio (Main Hall)
9:20AM
PLENARY SESSION
Keynote
Drawdown: The most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming
Paul Hawken is a legend of sustainable business, co-author of ‘Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution’, which Bill Clinton described as one of the most important books in the world. Paul is a committed activist and an entrepreneur who has founded several successful, ecologically-conscious businesses – and he’s in Australia in February 2018 to talk about his latest project, Drawdown.
Drawdown is the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming: mapping, measuring and modelling the 100 most substantive solutions to climate change. For each solution, the book describes its history, the carbon impact it
provides, the relevant cost and savings, the path to adoption, and how it works. Leading companies such as Interface Flor are basing their climate strategy on the work in Drawdown.
This keynote is not to be missed and will set the scene for Purpose 2018 – one of urgency, inspired resilience and revolution.
SPEAKERS
@Porter's Studio (Main Hall)
Panel
A Climate of Resilience
We all know and understand the Einstein quote: “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” but how often do we see this in practise? After decades of watching climate talks stall and targets get missed, how badly are we failing and how do we course-correct? It’s time to look to brand new ways of seeing and acting and this panel brings together people who are pushing at the edges, calling for action and urging us to approach this problem with very different thinking. Local speakers will join Paul on stage to place the insights from Drawdown into a local context and help us understand how we might apply radically new thinking to the challenge of global warming.
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@Porter's Studio (Main Hall)
10:30AM
MORNING TEA
11:00AM
MORNING BREAKOUT
Panel
The Responsible Entrepreneur
Hosted by UTS: Hatchery this session will examine what it takes to be a responsible entrepreneur in a world that worships high tech, high growth and ‘unicorns’. Talking to founders who are doing it, we’ll examine the conditions for success as well as the challenges creating an enterprise designed for social impact. We’ll look at practicalities of getting socially-driven enterprises off the ground, invested in and keeping them above water when purpose and mission don’t always equate to huge profits. This session will also look at the mindset of the responsible entrepreneur – because it’s not just about tech startups, “everyone’s entrepreneurial”.
Facilitator Tida Tippapart is a creative entrepreneur and strategist, and also the Program Manager of UTS: Hatchery, a pre-accelerator program to teach people how to think like entrepreneurs: “The program is centred on creating entrepreneurs not companies.. entrepreneurship is much more than just a subject that a student will take at university; it’s a way of thinking that will ultimately shape how a student envisages their future career path.”
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@THE PORTER'S STUDIO (MAIN HALL)
Presentations + panel
Companies finding their voice on social and environmental justice issues
Hosted by Sofia Madden from Principle Co, who played a pivotal role the Australian Marriage Equality campaign, this session will explore the conditions that make it possible for companies to get behind social and environmental issues and the impact they can have when they do.
Using marriage equality, #ChangetheDate and organic farming as case studies we will explore the questions:
– What makes it doable for mainstream companies to put their brand on the line and get behind an issue?

FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@THE OUTBACK
Workshop
Social Impact at Scale: How to build business models for profit and purpose
This interactive session will teach you what an MBA doesn’t – how to get your business model right for profit AND purpose. Whether you’re from the Not for Profit, Corporate, Government or Philanthropic sectors, identifying and pulling the right levers in your business model can be the difference between a bright idea and large scale social impact. Using practical tools that you can take back to your workplace, we will explore the benefits and challenges of different approaches. Whether you’re a Social Business, Corporate or Not-for-Profit Leader, this workshop is for you. George is MD of Spark Strategy, a social business advisory firm supporting organisations to be more sustainable and impactful through innovative and collaborative business models.
FACILITATOR
@The Beach
conversation
Live podcasting with Humans of Purpose
Each week on his podcast ‘Humans of Purpose’, Mike Davis brings you meaningful conversations with inspiring and purpose-driven individuals from our community.
Mike will be recording a set of podcast interviews live at Purpose with special guests – Purpose speakers – joining Mike for a relaxed conversation to discuss their career journey and purpose, how they aim to create change and how they leverage their impact. These interviews can be watched and enjoyed live at The Mezzanine on the morning of Day 1 and Day 2.
FACILITATOR
@The Mezzanine
Conversation
Systems Change Yarning Circle
PwC’s Indigenous Consulting (PIC) is a world-first firm in the PwC global network which is majority owned, led, and staffed by Indigenous Australians. Beginning as a global venture philanthropy fund, Acumen catalyzes entrepreneurship to tackle the problems of poverty.
@THE GREEN GARAGE
12:30PM
LUNCH
1:30PM
AFTERNOON BREAKOUT
Panel
A Female Future
It’s clear that the future is female, but for now we’re still counting. Women’s representation and decision making power is not where it should be in business and elsewhere in society. The pay gap persists (did you know it will take us to 2080 to rectify at the rate we are going?). Worse still, the Super Gap means that women are retiring with, on average, 47% of the super of men. In this session we hear from women from a range of industries: the media, the legal profession, finance and tech to hear first hand how and why gender inequality is persisting in their industries and what can be done about it.
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@Porter's Studio (Main Hall)
Workshop
Futures Lab: How will we live together in the future?
Australia faces some serious future challenges when it comes to how we live together in housing and in cities, and they require visionary solutions.
In this visioning workshop we ask the question ‘How might we live together in the future?’. We’ll hear from subject matter experts on creating cities that work – and practise the art of futurism and foresight in a visioning exercise.
The conversation will be opened up with a look at topics like:
- Creating cities that are meaningful, diverse and inclusive
- Designing cities that are sustainable and enhance public health
- The purpose and potential of banks to house Australia’s future
Join this session, hosted by Bank Australia (‘the bank Australia needs’), and together we’ll envision solutions to Australia’s housing and development challenges.
This session will not only get you thinking about the future, but will also help you learn how to think like a futurist, gaining practical skills for practising art of futurism and foresight.
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@THE BEACH
Roundtable
Aren’t we all doing the same thing? Working together across the purpose sector
There is no single answer to fixing capitalism, and no single organisation to lead the rebuild. Or is there? Do we all really have a role to play? Or are we all suffering from ‘terminal uniqueness’?
While we’re all striving for the same goal of building an inclusive economy we’re still stuck in the 20th century paradigm of competing, cannibalising and sometimes when there is money on the table – collaborating.
How do we move beyond the ‘same same but different’ mentality and reimagine a new way of working across the purpose movement?
What does the 21st century ‘purpose’ movement look like? Can we reimagine how to do business with each other?
In this important roundtable, new Executive Director of B Lab Australia & New Zealand Andrea De Almeida will facilitate a discussion about where we are as a sector and whether we should go forward together or apart. Andrea will lead this no holds barred conversation as well as present B Lab’s perspective, along with the Future Business Council, Conscious Capitalism Australia, Fairtrade and PwC Indigenous Consulting.
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@THE MEZZANINE
Panel
Mental Health and Work
Mental Health is a huge challenge for Australia, for us as individuals and for us as humans at work. Some recent statistics paint the picture for us: SafeWork NSW estimates that the cost to NSW businesses of absenteeism due to mental ill-health is $1.5 billion per annum, 45% of all Australians will experience a mental health problem in their lifetimeand 92% of which are attributed to work related mental stress. From the big picture problem to the practical challenges of organisations and entrepreneurs, this session will examine mental health at work. Our experts will explore the research at hand and together ask: what can be done to change workplace culture for better mental health? This session is hosted by icare Foundation who are calling for ideas to address concerns around Mental Health at Work. Visit http://purpose.do/icare for more information.
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@THE OUTBACK
3:00PM
AFTERNOON TEA
3:30PM
CLOSING PLENARY
Keynote
Trust: the currency of the new economy
Technology is changing us.
It is transforming the way we learn and interact with each other. Is consumer technology and artificial intelligence changing what it means to be human? Will we become ‘unnecessary’? How worried should we be? Or should we be hopeful? What are the ethical implications and how will companies respond to this entirely new set of considerations for corporate responsibility?
This is the terrain of technology, ethics, science fiction, attention, privacy, trust, addiction and humanity. It’s the part bionic arm of the Amazon warehouse worker and what the relationship between ‘the machine and me’ might be.
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@Porter's Studio (Main Hall)
panel
Ethics & Tech: business ethics in an exponentially accelerating world of technology
This session digs even deeper into the topic of technology, ethics and humanity.
Our hosts, Huddle, will delve into data – as machines begin to make decision for us, are they making good ones? Are they more or less discerning than humans? Do they discriminate? What are the pros and what are the cons?
We’ll hear from Ian McLelland, founding CEO at The Guardian about the impact of the tech giants on the media as a whole as well as some of the darker sides of ‘comment culture’.
And we’re excited to hear from moral philosopher and ethics and tech expert Dr Matthew Beard from The Ethics Centre on the relationship between humanity and technology.
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@PORTER's STUDIO (MAIN HALL)
6:00PM
SIDE EVENTS
Fun
F*ck Up Night
Who wants to publicly declare they fucked up?
Thousands of people, actually. And their stories are surprisingly inspiring.
On any given night in over 170 cities around the world, a group of strangers will gather in pubs, theatres and bars to divulge their grandest personal and professional failures in front of an audience of hundreds. It’s call a FuckUp Night.
Garry Williams, GM of Inspire9, will be running a special ‘Purpose edition’ of F*ck Up Nights to get us all a lot more comfortable with failure, for the sake of creating the conditions for experimentation and innovation, and just being a little gentler on our less-than-perfect selves.
FACILITATOR
@Off-SITE VENUE
Day
Two
9:00AM
WELCOME
9:20AM
PLENARY SESSION
Keynotes
How I Built This
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@Porter's Studio (Main Hall)
10:30AM
MORNING TEA
11:00AM
MORNING BREAKOUT
Presentations + Panel
Redesigning Work for the 21st Century
Based on extensive research by all of our speakers into the future of work, this session will provide an in-depth look at the forces shaping the future of work and what we can do to prepare. Looking at questions like – Is technology good or bad for work-life balance? How do we future-proof our skills sets and companies? Does the office need a redesign for the 21st Century? Which jobs will disappear with automation and which will emerge? How do we organise ourselves now? What do people want in their work? And, of course, what can you do to prepare for all of this? – this session we examine the evolving relationship between technology, work and human behaviour and the ethical and practical questions faced by all of us in a changing world of work.
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@THE PORTER'S STUDIO (MAIN HALL)
Presentations + Panel
New school corporate responsibility: navigating complexity and harnessing value in the new economy
This session will look at how leaders from corporates and NGOs are navigating complexity and harnessing value in the new economy. The session features those at the forefront of purpose-driven innovation discussing how they’ve linked purpose and profit, uncovered sources of shared value, forged entirely new approaches to partnership, and seen financial and other benefits flow when this is done well. Our speakers have bravely and successfully experimented with new approaches and will share what they have learned. This session wouldn’t be complete without a look also at some of the tensions and intricacies that will inevitably arise when forging partnerships across sectors or driving purpose all the way through a company’s culture and leadership. Join this session for a candid conversation with some of the best purpose-driven business minds in Australia, as well as the not-for-profit perspective on the opportunities and challenges of purpose and partnerships.
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@THE OUTBACK
conversation
Live podcasting with Humans of Purpose
Each week on his podcast ‘Humans of Purpose’, Mike Davis brings you meaningful conversations with inspiring and purpose-driven individuals from our community.
Mike will be recording a set of podcast interviews live at Purpose with special guests – Purpose speakers – joining Mike for a relaxed conversation to discuss their career journey and purpose, how they aim to create change and how they leverage their impact. These interviews can be watched and enjoyed live at The Mezzanine on the morning of Day 1 and Day 2.
FACILITATOR
@The Mezzanine
Workshop
Brands, Belief, and Community Building
Brands are increasingly looking to build not just consumers but communities and commitment around their purpose. The commitment curve is the centre piece of any strong community. It is the tool that allows organisers, communicators and marketers to transform individuals from passive players into passionate leaders. Used by AirBnB, the Australian Workers’ Union and others, this workshop will show you what a commitment curve is and how it’s used in communities around the world. We’ll cover brands that build communities and movements, a brief overview of the tool, and then you’ll roll up your sleeves start designing your own curve based on your community’s needs.
@THE BEACH
12:30PM
LUNCH
1:30PM
AFTERNOON BREAKOUT
Lightning talks + Panel
Technology on our terms: redesigning the future and making it work for all of us
How would we redesign facebook, given what we know today?
‘Move fast and break things’ was the motto that drove many internet and technology entrepreneurs over the past two decades. Digital technology, through the nexus of smart devices and social platforms, is now entwined in the most intimate areas of our lives – from following friends, finding work, hailing rides, to searching for love. Yet at what cost has this rapid burst of innovation come? In moving so fast, what did we actually break along the way?
Addictive design, fake news, personal data extraction and powerful platform monopolies have accompanied this recent digital wave. This is why there are growing calls to rethink and redesign how we might use, design and build business models around digital technology. And it turns out there’s a lot we can do to make things better.
This session will be hosted by Type Human and feature lightning talks by Matt Beard on ethical principles for technology design, Ally Watson on gender and culture of technology communities and Nick Byrne on how blockchains and the emerging technology of web 3.0 might solve some of our current challenges. We will then move into an open forum for questions and contributions from participants.
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@THE PORTER'S STUDIO (MAIN HALL)
Presentations + Panel
Cut Through Communications: how to speak to modern hearts, heads and attention spans
This session examines real world examples of campaigns and content which have cut through the noise and successfully shifted the conversation around an issue.
Taking the example of the War on Waste and reusable coffee cups, they’ve also revolutionised attitudes, dinner table conversations and consumer behaviour, creating the cultural change required to help reusable coffee cup brands see overnight transformation of their brands.
Learn from these expert content creators and strategic communicators about how to make your issue digestible and your creative work cut through the noise.
FACILITATOR
SPEAKERS
@THE OUTBACK
Workshop
Partnering for Purpose in the New Economy
Interactive workshop with Max Van Biene and Laura Reed from Spark Strategy.
This workshop has been designed to provide practical examples and tips to help those trying to achieve more aligned, sustainable and impactful cross sector partnerships. If you are a Not-for-Profit, this workshop will help you develop better Corporate relationships by clarifying what you’re asking for, better exploring the range of support you can access and helping you better communicate your value. If you’re a Corporate Leader, this workshop will help you engage with the social sector and community with a few less headaches and in a way that can lead to both business and social outcomes.
FACILITATOR
@THE BEACH
3:00PM
AFTERNOON TEA
3:30PM
CLOSING PLENARY
Keynote
Systems Change in Practise: thinking, designing and doing system-level change
The scale of transition required in our organisations and our economy is daunting, but the thinking being done on how to navigate this change is nothing short of awe-inspiring.
The closing plenary of Purpose 2018 is a BIG conversation about the ‘how’ behind systemic change, cross-sector collaboration, the anthropocene, transition design and sustainability at the systems level. A diverse range of thinkers will tell us how they think differently about systems and how we can think and work differently too.
This conversation will span natural systems, economics, change theory, technology, alternate world views as well as the human, social, interpersonal and organisational systems which are part of the great transition our society must undergo.
SPEAKERS
@THE PORTER'S STUDIO (MAIN HALL)
5:30PM
PURPOSE PARTY
Fun
Purpose Party
@The Laneway