Marie Gabrielle is a gardener, but not in the way you think!

Marie Gabrielle’s vocation is to cultivate talents, to give them light and self-confidence. Before becoming a coach, consultant and trainer, she saw many talented individuals in organisations wasting away due and becoming frustrated in their jobs due to a lack of expression. She experienced this herself working for a number of years in a large corporation and noticed these patterns amongst many of her friends and colleagues. She also noticed that CSR policies of many organizations failed to spark powerful momentum and bring about actual progress or impact in order to meet the strategic sustainable development these organisations were working towards.

That’s why she decided to create L.I.G.H.T (Leadership, Intrapreneurship, Growth, Humanism & Transformation), a sustainable talent development program aimed at growing ‘intrapreneurs’ within organizations. What is an intrapreneur? It’s a resourceful person with good ideas who is able to lead a concrete project from A to Z within the organizations that employs them. As she’s a good gardener, Marie Gabrielle knows how to grow the talents she in charge of; with her friend and colleague Karen, they facilitate a 9-month program in organisations blending training workshops, coaching and support for participant who are conducting a project with social or environmental impact outside of their usual work scope. The concept of intrapreneurship is motivational for the participant and ensures that everyone benefits by producing shared value for the company! When her work is done, Marie Gabrielle leaves her talents in full bloom, happier in their work than before and with real sustainable value added to the organisation.

Marie-Gabrielle’s activity fits perfectly with the Hub values! She believes that everybody can act and have an impact towards the changes needed in our society. The L.I.G.H.T program offers each participant the opportunity to taste what it means to be an entrepreneur working towards social impact. The Hub is a work space where great ideas become action. She believes in the value of co-working; participants can lead projects as a group and she plans to soon offer a Hub module within the program: where participants receive a Hub membership to enjoy the benefits of co-working in our community and access to social innovation related knowledge through the Hub entrepreneurs and thinkers.

The Hub gives Marie Gabrielle access to many resourceful people who have contributed directly and indirectly to progress in her business; a chat with a member can turn into an informal business coaching from someone with more experience or a gifted Hub intern can support with graphic material design. This is supported by the Hub currency; allowing her to exchange goods and services without physically exchanging Euros, something which is key during the start-up phase of a business. By integrating a Hub module into L.I.G.H.T program, Marie-Gabrielle is exploring the possibility of a nonzero sum game – expanding the Hub members’ base and enriching the value of her offer at the same time.

Written by Juan Martinez

Jean-Luc is one of these people who do things thoroughly. He decided to bring his contribution in order to change this world and he works hard for it!

Jean-Luc goes in many directions to make this world a better place. First, he’s a mentor, where he provides facilitation for people in order to help them create a balance and understanding between their work and the meaning they give to life. Jean-Luc manages to ingeniously mix neurosciences and Buddhist spirituality in order to reunify yourself and your work.

He also runs two humanitarian projects in Africa and Asia. In Africa, he works hand-in-hand with a non-profit organisation fighting against female genital mutilation. In Asia, he created an ecological and self-sufficient spiritual end-of-life care centre at 4000 meters in the Tibetan mountains; his centre provides a comfortable place for Tibetan people to rest and receive the best care. He even managed to get Chinese governmental approval for his project and illustrates that compassion is an undeniable universal feeling.

Jean-Luc is a multi skilled innovator who is also writing a book and a film script in collaboration with a Belgian film-maker. Both touch and address new emerging themes such as complementary currency, new energy and uneconomic growth.

As you can see the link between Jean-Luc’s activities and Hub values is pretty obvious; he is willing and active in making people become more and more aware about social change. His mentoring activity fits totally with the Hub’s personal development perspective and finally, his humanitarian activities link with the Hub’s faith in everyone’s capacity to change the world in his or her own way.

The Hub brought him the possibility to enlarge his network of contacts. It also gives him a lot of joy and pleasure to be at the disposal of a community or an individual project and he loves participating in this gift economy because it brings us the most fulfilment. Jean Luc is a care-holder and also a very active and engaged member of the Board. He was also instrumental in initiating the Hub complementary currency system.

Written by Juan Martinez

Sometime pictures tell more than words: Nick understands this better than anyone and decided to use his graphic skills to make a contribution.

70% of the people are believed to be visual learners and find it easier to learn and remember information with pictures. Knowing this, Nick started doing visualizing consultancy in an organisational development context. As pictures can be words he helps both companies and NGOs with his art, drawing graphic illustrations of meetings, conferences… The goal is to create a visual record, a picture of what has been said in order to strengthen the collective memory of the event’s content. And as Nick says, “the first step to cultural or organisational change is to remember what you want to change,” and his graphic illustrations so are clearer, stronger and speak for themselves in highlighting this desired change. Nick also created Scribble School, which is basically graphic facilitation but in a more educational context. He knows that a lot could be done to improve education; both the way that students learn and the way that teachers teach. With graphic visualization both students and teachers would be able to add value to their work and increase performance. The strength of this is in its simplicity and its sharing purpose, which is always key in education.

The Hub gathers a bunch of people focused on a very particular kind of change; social change. Nick thinks that in improving education, the way we learn and also the way we work, his activity is linked to implementing and encouraging social change. The Hub values co-working as an alternative way of working, and Nick teaches but also practices mind-mapping which is another way of working.

The Hub open a door for Nick to a very creative and interactive network where he found collaborators (he both received and gave help for projects) but also good friends. The Hub also gave him the opportunity to showcase his activity through the organisation of a workshop, for example, which has been recorded and broadcast in Hub social medias, as through the members themselves. He has also been able to share his skills and teach many members of the core team and the community how to use graphic facilitation in their work. Moreover, he benefits from the possibility to land in other Hubs when he travels frequently making use of other Hubs in London for instance. Finally, thanks to the Hub, Nick feels involved in the creation of a better world.

Written by Juan Martinez

Do you ever feel disconnected from others and yourself? Bettina can help you in finding and building the bridge you need.

Bettina’s main occupation, for the moment, is consultancy in the area of development and management of EU-cooperation projects for sustainable development, mostly in the Mediterranean area. Whilst working in this field she identified that many multicultural cooperation projects (financed by the EU) experience difficulties bringing lasting results or even fail because of a lack of understanding of the respective cultural value systems. That’s why her ambition is promote the use of the Integral Framework and Spiral Dynamics; tools which are very useful to understand development stages and value systems of societies, organisations and individuals. These tools are all the more useful when you work in multicultural contexts as they help build bridges and to understand the social or cultural “do’s and don’t's” of project partners. Moreover, as a licensed Avatar®Master, she is currently evaluating how she could include more consciousness training and coaching in her work and how to share Avatar®tools for personal development & leadership. These tools are designed to help you increase compassion in the world, restructure your own consciousness and create the bridge you need to reach yourself and the others.

Bettina sees herself and her activity as “bright green” and “transrational” and this is why she feels connected to the Hub values. Bright green because the Hub has green values (ecology, protection, care, pluralism), but is not dogmatic as it is commercially oriented uses technology as a tool for creating a better future. Transrational because the Hub values and promotes initiatives that encourage personal and collective development that take you beyond the rational self just like with Integral Approach, Spiraldynamics and Presencing. She also appreciates very much, apart from the co-working space, the community aspect of the Hub and the ease with which people connect to each other and go out of their ways to help you.

Bettina is pretty new in the Hub community yet already working in the Hub and being connected other members provides her with a very pleasant and inspiring space. The Hub is a place of high creativity and it makes her happy to encounter so many people that are motivated by the purpose of a better world. Bettina has several ideas she wants to develop in order to be more active in the Hub community: She could on one hand give very practical training on how to write a EU-project proposal, help Hub members to fine-tune their project proposals, or help analyse and develop project ideas. She would also be happy to explore possibilities for the Hub to use EU funding for its development. Another idea is to offer Thoughtstorm®Groups, where an interested group of 4 to 8 people could explore any given topic by tapping into the group intelligence with the aim to reach an outcome/result/answer that is intuitively shared by all participants and creates commitment to this outcome/result/answer. In the Hubble-Bubble section, Bettina would be happy to introduce you to the power of a “simple” compassion exercise, which will leave you with a feeling of inner peace.

Written by Juan Martinez

“Do not let stress hold you down”

Tom is an alchemist, such as old (and mythological) King Midas, his hands turn whatever he touches into gold. For this process he needs two elementary ingredients; body and mind and with this he creates his own type of gold; harmony. Working as an osteopath Tom saw that many people were underperforming at work and in their personal lives due to stress. How? Stress reduces the blood flows in the limbic system and neocortex, where creativity, feelings and reason spring up. Stress provides more blood to the reptilian brain, where basic emotions such as fear are allowed to see the light of day leading to underperformance. Tom’s motto is “do not let stress hold you down” and in order to stop these effects coming from the body and overshadowing the spirit, Tom provides body stimulation in order to open up the brain vascularisation. He reconciles body and mind, and creates harmony; the alchemy is done! Your creativity is in full bloom, you are relaxed at last, no more foggy brain feeling and tense body and it’s hello sunny days! Tom is also teaching his methods to his patients so they can self heal and shares his teachings with psychologists and coaches because for him there is no one-way road to reach this state and because body and mind are interconnected.

According to Tom the general value of the Hub is to go back to basics to achieve social change and for him there is nothing more basic than the body. Moreover, Tom sees a concrete link between illness and change; we all know that we need to maintain our health but we’re not changing our habits in order to do so. Changing the world starts with oneself but if you’re not able to think clearly due to stress, how could you even start to think about changing the world? The Hub creates a platform gathering people, those people change the world. Tom and his Body-Coaching approach helps individuals make that dream come true with healthy body and mind.

Tom has been part of the Hub since the very first co-creation meeting. It is a space where he can organise workshops and events. Above all it is a place where he can network and seize opportunities to embark on new journeys and adventures. Talking about opportunities, Tom doesn’t let them speed off without him: he created the health & wellness Hub within the Hub, gathering the health & wellness community in one virtual space to talk about best practises and collaboration. This community within a community plans to share with the Hub members health and wellness tips among other ideas a feature in the Hub newsletter. He also initiated the idea to create the Hub Expo; a two day event where the community could showcase its artworks, projects and show its creativity to the public. Finally, Tom is also a “care-holder” and investor in the Hub as he feels that in this way he contributes even more to the idea of collaboration.

Written by Juan Martinez

Moments of marvel and beauty

Who is Sergio Roberto? A classical music appassionato who studied musicology and now is a classical music and opera expert. Our protagonist is not just a theoretical man of the arts, he also practices them; he’s a theatre actor and occasionally even a musician. Sergio Roberto discovered he had too much music passion to keep to himself so he decided to share it with others and thus created Toccata, a music travel design company for people in need of new cultural and musical horizons. He proposes custom cultural trips and music experiences in the most beautiful cities of Europe and beyond; New York, Prague, Rome, London, Madrid, Venice, Naples, St. Petersburg, Brussels, Paris are just some examples of his destinations! His trips involve mind broadening exploration of the city by day visiting museums, art exhibitions and of course enjoying local culinary delights. Come evening, Sergio Roberto brings his guests to the finest selection of operas and music concerts and teaches his audience the secrets that music often wants to keep to itself.

Another part of Sergio Roberto activity is the organisation of cultural events such as music concerts, theatre events and other multidisciplinary projects related to arts. In this field Sergio Roberto shows all his potential: he’s at the same time he manages to juggle being a manager, a theatre director and actor.

His activity is linked to Hub values because Sergio Roberto makes people share new experiences together and is contributing to the construction of a better world offering moments of marvel and beauty to people. Furthermore, Sergio Roberto shares the idea of community and values the human contact that Hub helps create.

The Hub brings Sergio Roberto an inspirational & interactive work environment. Moreover, the Hub provides him tools to develop and strengthen his activity by participating in events such as the Hub Clinics where he learnt and developed skills to increase the visibility of his website. On the other side Sergio Roberto is involved in the Hub community life: he participates regularly to the creative Hub community events like Hub Express and is organizing the music side to the upcoming Hub Expo ohh and his Italian side means that he brings very good pasta to Sexy Salad!

Written by Juan Martinez

People who can inspire others to do the same.

One day Olof had an idea: why not tell stories about people who live sustainable lives; stories about ordinary people doing amazing things? We’re not talking about the extreme “ecological weirdo’s” or people living in marginal communities because of their green ways, these would be stories about normal people, like you and me, who have a positive story and simply found a way to live in a city and have a low negative impact on the environment. People who can inspire others to do the same.

Her purpose is to provide practical information but also to give ideas to people interested in re-inventing their lifestyles without having to flee to the countryside or to entirely transform their lives. Olof wants to inspire people who maybe thought it was possible to change their lifestyle by showing concrete examples of normal people who made it; these everyday heroes. For this, Olof will first create a website with profiles, videos and photos where we can see stories of these low impact heroes but her long term ambition is to make a documentary film where we would to follow 6 Europeans living sustainable and innovative lifestyles.

“The link between my activity and the Hub is obvious,” she says: the Hub wants to emphasize and encourage social change and her projects (the website and documentary film) are about people participating in this social change. Moreover, with her desire to connect people together, Olof is on the path to create a community of likeminded people such as the Hub does.

The Hub brought a lot to Olof! She arrived to the Hub ready to give up her project but here at the Hub she found the support and the will to carry on. As one of the first recipients of the Hub scholarship she received a lot of help and advice from the other community members; some of them helped her in the creation of her website, some of them gave her technical help. Moreover, concretely, her project greatly benefited from the international Hub network and the strength and diversity of its members as she was able to connect with Hubbers across Europe who are living sustainable lives in an uncompromising way. The Hub is for her a very inspirational workspace: she shares this space with people in the same state of mind as her and that’s why she says she feels at home here and not alone. She’s still in the early stages of her project that’s why she doesn’t have so many things to give back: but she is helping the Hub revise its recycling strategy and she member Hosts on Tuesdays. She admits that Hub Hosts are key in this community because they have an overview of who is doing what so they help all the social entrepreneurs connect with each other.

Written by Juan Martinez

Stop being good soldiers and start becoming commanders!

For the moment Bieke’s number one project is her little son Oscar who manages to catch all her attention. Bieke might still be defining her project but she has a concrete idea of how she wants to build a better world: she wants to do it her own way. This young determined woman is a freelance independent specialist in process design for projects, leadership and organisational development in the fields of sustainability and education. Her aim is to make people stop being good soldiers and start becoming their own commander: for her the expression “personal development” is too self-centered which is why she prefers “leadership” or “personal sustainable development”. People should be able to know who they want to be and what they can contribute to society with purpose. There are too many sandmen and not enough people who awake you nowadays so her ambition is about answering one question: “how to create good leaders?”

Bieke is experienced in her field. Before Oscar she worked for Generation Europe Foundation helping them to find new ways of contributing for sustainability, linking their efforts with group-intelligence and designing intergenerational workshops in order to define what young people need to become more active in entrepreneurship and sustainability issues.

She thinks her activity is linked to Hub values because both emphasize participation and collaboration to help change society. Moreover, one purpose of the Hub that Bieke shares is that of raising awareness amongst communities to different ways of working & living using collaboration, sustainability, learning and entrepreneurship.

The Hub brings Bieke a place to be and one which “allows you to work how you want to work” as there is no conventional dressing requirement and no prescribed way to act; you just have to come how you are. The Hub allows her to become more creative as she feels no pressure to conform. Moreover, in the Hub she found freelance jobs, a network of contacts and true life-long friends. She brings to the Hub her way of seeing things and her expertise in project conceptualization. She is also a member Host and you’ll find here in the Hub mainly on Monday and Friday afternoons singing along and smiling away.

Written by Juan Martinez

Making people happy by making other people happy

As Guillaume loves playing he made a challenge with himself to use play to build a better world. How you might ask? With games of course! Guillaume’s ambition is to make people happy by making other people happy. Let me explain to you: Guillaume wants to make people play in order to help other people who need it. By participating in Guillaume’s games people contribute to the construction of a better world. When participants win a game they earn points which are then transferred into money which can be spent in helping a cause or charity of the winner’s choice; the money donated is generated by the customers, public and corporate funds. He is also developing free games which are financed by companies that want to serve or donate money to a valuable cause. Guillaume’s long-term aim is to integrate his gaming mentality and philosophy into people’s minds and their normal practices so that social change and helping others is fun for all; why not try doing it with a football match?

Guillaume’s activity is linked to Hub values because it is created in order to generate social change. The Hosts here at the Hub work to create social links and encourage human contact between different members of the Hub community and in a similar way Guillaume’s project encourages people to connect and communicate to help build a better world.

The Hub has provided Guillaume with a very productive workspace over the past four months where he could connect and promote his project with other Hub members and the other Hubs around the world. Additionally, as Guillaume has a keen interest in audiovisual technologies he has offered support to the Hub team in creating videos celebrating the community and its activities.

Written by Juan Martinez

Developing more affectivity within education.

Do you remember which work you wanted to do when you were a child? Well, Odile make her little girl’s dream come true!

As she has been passionate with dance since her childhood and could not make this choice as a profession, Odile took the opportunity to fulfill her dream later on at the age of 36. She stopped her legal and communication career to make a professional switch, she decided to follow dance, music and arts trainings in Paris, and later on in Brussels. But she was not fully satisfied until she got to know Biodanza, indeed she was looking for a practice more integrated included body and mind, Arts and Spirit, which she found in Biodanza. It is an activity of Human Development using music and movement in order to bloom people’s potentials. Through 4 axes (creativity, affectivity, transcendence and vitality) Biodanza aims organic renewal, affective re-education, and re-learning of life original functions. Odile deepened her understanding of the Biodanza methodology and felt the call for specialization in Education. She then started to study Biocentric Education, which is an educational approach using Biodanza but also other tools of facilitation, as circles of culture . Biocentric education (established in schools and universities in Brazil since 20 years) is about learning and teaching to live, preserve and perpetuate humanity’s heritage: develop more cooperation, solidarity and affective intelligence, more pleasure to learn, it is an education for more happiness, joy of life, wonderment. Odile’s project is to contribute to bring the benefits of Biocentric education in Europe, by training adults, educators, teachers, and parents. By practicing it in schools and in families, and also propose it to kids in needs, orphans, abandoned kids, or kids with adaptation disabilities.

Biodanza and Biocentric Education aim to develop more affectivity within education. This is totally in adequacy with Hub values which purpose is to create a world more harmonious in order to live better together. The respect of Nature is primordial both in Odile’s activity and in Hub perspectives.

The Hub brought her a lot when she began because first of all she needed a place to work. When she started coming to the Hub her activity began to develop in a significant way. The Hub helped her in positioning herself professionally because she’s a pioneer in Belgium: she first of all felt alone facing sometimes discouragement but the Hub community helped her a lot to overcome this obstacle. She appreciated to have the opportunity to host that allowed her to see clearer in her potential, and test her practices. She took the initiative to create the “Hubble Bubble” which is a space of relaxation in the Hub in which she also proposed a weekly relaxation session happening each Friday.

Written by Juan Martinez