The Hub and Spaces for Social Change

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2008-10-19 13:28:00 UTC
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One of the most remarkable things about working at a university is the ability we have to use physical space and proximity to amplify and accelerate creative social entrepreneurship. With smart students, experts from  every field, meeting rooms, white boards, and a sense of the possible galore, its a great space to move from ideas to action.

What's the parallel in the real world? Where do people come together to make big plans? I think the lack of spaces dedicated specifically to big thinking, big action and mutual destiny are exactly why events like Skoll World Forum and the Clinton Global Initiative are in such high demand. But, as all of us who run conferences can attest, keeping and maintaining the sense of community spirit and interaction after the event ends is incredibly difficult.

The Hub has a different take on the problem. The Hub is a social enterprise designed to "create places for people who change things." In their own words:

[We create] places with all the tools and trimmings needed to grow and develop new ventures. Places to access experience, knowledge, finance and markets. And above all, places for experience and encounter, full of diverse people doing amazing things.

Practically, The Hub has office and events spaces in 12 cities on four continents where entrepreneurs and innovators work on their big ideas together. While I haven't had the chance to visit any Hub's in person, I first heard about the idea just after having visited a similar space in Cairo called the Townhouse Gallery.

For about a decade, the Townhouse Gallery has been a space where artists in Cairo could come together, collaborate, put on public exhibitions, lectures, and more. What started as an art space grew into a community hub. I found out about it because my girlfriend was working with Tadamon: The Egyptian Refugee Multicultural Council, which works with Tadamon not only as a space for art projects, but as a space to grow community and diversity between Cairo's local and refugee populations.

My sense is that the energy in spaces like The Hub, and like Townhouse, is the same energy that entrepreneurs seeks to capture and seek to create in their teams.

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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