The Portland Global Shapers Hub aims to cultivate an inclusive, engaged, and resilient city. We’re a group of 20+ young folks, selected through an application process, who want to solve problems in Portland, Maine using forward-thinking and often unconventional approaches.

The Portland hub was founded when Treehouse Institute founder, Adam Burk, was asked by the World Economic Forum to be the founding curator of the Portland, Maine Global Shaper Hub in June, 2015. Adam continues to play an active advisory role in the hub as its founding curator.

Current hub projects include: Our Generation, Portland Participates, Resilient Portland, Maine Girls Innovate, and Hi, Neighbor.

The Portland Global Shapers hub is part of the worldwide Global Shapers Community. The Global Shapers Community is an initiative of the World Economic Forum, a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, committed to improving the state of the world through public-private cooperation while remaining independent and not tied to special interests.  The World Economic Forum purposefully engages young leaders to build solutions that shape the future.

OUR MISSION:

The Portland Hub is motivated to build a community of local visionaries and doers who are committed to improving the state of the world and fostering peace. The Portland Hub will change the accepted narratives of everyday issues, invite all of Portland’s residents to participate in public processes, and improve transparency and permeability between decision makers and community stakeholders. We believe that to activate change we must foster a culture of empathy and practice action orientated strategies. The Hub will support efforts that share its goal to be inclusive, change accepted narratives, and redefine community engagement; as we seek not to duplicate existing efforts but rather amplify what is already working.