I met Alex Michel, one of the founding members of The Hub, back in March at the Global Engagement Summit. Alex describes The Hub as a “habitat” where ideas can be turned into solutions; a place where innovators can go to gain access to motivating and inspiring people, information, and just the right environment they need to mobilize an idea into action. I’m really excited to see that this project get up and running out in Berkley / San Francisco — it’s an awesome concept that is going to be wildly important in the years to come. The Hub: Bay Area launched earlier this week with a fantastic kickoff forum titled “Money, Mobs, and Media: Mobilizing Action for Change” as part of the Hub Social Innovation Series. It was a panel discussion featuring:

• Matt Flannery of Kiva.org
• Steve Newcomb of Virgance, and
• Ben Rattray of Change.org
• Moderated By: Regina Connell of Saltcellar Productions

Here is video of the opening forum:

I love what Steve says about this century being about “fixing all the crap we built last century” to make it sustainable. The mission is huge — there is a lot of work to do — but if you’re anything like me, that just means there’s a lot of awesome opportunity as well. It’s time to build what Steve calls “Apollo Projects” — for profit businesses using the power of capitalism to effect change while being sustainable all the while.