Nathaniel founded Future Minds Network, a social enterprise that equips young people with the skills, mentors, and funding to turn their ideas into real businesses.
Future Minds Network began in 2018, when Nathaniel was 16 and close to dropping out of high school. After a hackathon showed him education could be more engaging and creative, he organised one of his own for 100 students from schools across his region. Since then, Future Minds Network has grown into a multi-programme enterprise encompassing large-scale innovation summits, multi-week entrepreneurship accelerators, and a creative enterprise programme. It is delivered in Australia’s most socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, where young people are three times more likely to be unemployed and far more likely to leave school early than their metropolitan peers.
Future Minds Network has reached 11,000 young people through its Innovation Summit and a further 1,500 through FutureHack, its six-week entrepreneurship and innovation programme, 78 of whom are expected to have completed year 12 due to programming. An additional 30 young people have participated in the Young Artist Centre’s programme. Looking ahead, Nathaniel is piloting Australia’s first school-based entrepreneurship pathway which will allow students to launch a business while still in school, earn a university-level subject credit, and enter higher education saving up to $3,000 in tuition.
Nathaniel attended the 2024 Summit in Montréal, where he participated in a design thinking workshop with Deloitte’s Chief Purpose Officer and had the opportunity to meet speakers including Justin Trudeau and David Suzuki. A contact made at the Summit nominated him as Coordinating Ambassador for Australia and New Zealand, where he now coordinates engagement in the region.
“Becoming a One Young World Coordinating Ambassador was my way of creating a bigger impact, not only in Australia but in the region.”
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