At the height of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, with just two short weeks of rapid planning, around 200 people from across Australia, New Zealand and even parts of Asia and Europe (pet dogs and cats included), came together for a gathering of minds and hearts, under the unifying banner:
“Rising to Meet the Challenge – an Australian Social Enterprise Response to COVID-19”.

Setting out to ‘Explore – Discover – Respond’, the Unconference was opened with an Ideas Marketplace to generate topics for facilitated sessions pitched by attendees. Once set, this was followed by an afternoon jam-packed with rich, uplifting, and stimulating conversations, facilitated through a series of synchronous breakout sessions delivered by the participants themselves. Closing on a beautiful note with music by musician and facilitator Matt Wicking, we concluded this Australia-first online event with a landing space for attendees to process what was coming up for them in this extraordinary moment.

Digital Storytellers were proud to craft and co-facilitate the Unconference event experience and technical delivery, to support the Social Enterprise sector in its time of greatest need. With an amazing energy and diversity of participants, and just the gathering the social enterprise community needed to embark on the journey ahead, we are excited to see the world of possibility our ‘Virtual Unconference’ format presents.

• ‘Unconference’ style online event – being able to pick the agenda.

• Bringing everyone together in a crisis moment

• Innovative and engaging content

• Depth and quality of conversations

• All the humans 🙂 So lovely!

Following the outstanding success of the COVID-19 Virtual Unconference, the Alliance of Social Enterprise Networks Australia (ASENA) is now working rapidly towards a national strategy for the sector.