Donnie Maclurcan

Donnie Maclurcan is a social revolutionary. He celebrates thinking ‘big’, whilst keeping grounded with ongoing questions, projects and a spot of gardening. He is the Founder and CEO of the community development organisation Project Australia and a founding member of the Growthbusters – a global network inspiring and equipping people everywhere to make the well-being of people and the planet our most urgent priority, without relying on growth to make it happen.

His unique insights come from an unusually diverse career, having worked as an exercise physiologist and telephone counsellor, coordinator of a lobby group for Aboriginal justice and a team assisting Sydney’s homeless, a journalist from the World Social Forum in Kenya, an English and mathematics teacher in South Korea and event manager for The Great Australian Bike Ride.

Donnie’s outputs have resonated throughout Australia and the world, leading to his appointment as a Fellow of The Royal Society of the Arts. His PhD was one of the world’s first, comprehensive investigations of nanotechnology’s possible global consequences, resulting in two book contracts and over 20 translations of his work. In 2006, he co-developed an award-winning case study for Australian high schools about the drowning of 353 asylum seekers on their way to Australia. He also founded Australia’s first professional speakers’ bureau for younger people, is one of the youngest to have competed in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and, at age 20, achieved the Guinness World Record for the fastest journey on foot across Australia, raising over $35000 for The Fred Hollows Foundation, for whom he remains an ambassador. Visit PROJECT AUSTRALIA