network popups - network societies in australia
Join an optimistic storytelling and vision huddle, exploring Australia’s historical industrial-era upskilling movements and how that history can lend a thread of continuum to NS-aligned projects in Australia today.
From Western Australia to Queensland, NSW and Victoria, Network School members and cofounders are already working on what could become future startup societies.
What makes Australia uniquely viable and uniquely hard?
Perth is only a cheap five-hour flight from Singapore, with sunshine, beaches, strong arts and startup scenes, and underutilised buildings worth exploring for node-like potential. But it’s not Malaysia; cost of living is high and real estate is wildly inflated.
Where there’s a will there’s a way.
To get building together down-under we’re looking at everything from underutilised pubs and alternative-to-Airbnb models, to eco-villages, university residential campuses, home-sharing apps, and publicly owned buildings sitting idle as local governments sell down assets.
Electra will share news about Arrayah’s hackerhouses in Perth and what she’s exploring to integrate within an aligned coastal precinct.
For context, Electra will also share her pre-NS (2018–2024) work in “Australia’s first digital currency town”, including a crypto-native STEAM centre modelled on the 19th century School of Arts and Mechanics’ Institutes movement.
Those were community-built (not government built) centres all around Australia for self-improvement where new technology skills and new thinking were made accessible to all, and which seeded Australia’s 20th-century technical colleges.
Nat will expand on this with her research into these historical movements and what they can teach us about building the conditions for a startup society culture in Australia today.
Bring your ideas and experiences. We’re collecting options for a V0 roadmap to make this happen in Australia.
As Akshat (Arrayah) says: you can just do things!