Georgia is a civil society professional, activist, cultural manager and creative professional. She is also a researcher, trained facilitator and consultant in the fields of social organisations, culture and arts, human rights, innovation, development and creative industries.
In 2016, she co-founded Instituto Procomum, a commons-based organisation, where she is currently director of programs and partnerships and institutional development. Between 2013 and 2016, Georgia served as deputy secretary of Creative Economy and Cultural Policy and director of management, entrepreneurship, and innovation in Brazil’s Ministry of Culture of Brazil.
A social communications graduate, Georgia worked as a cultural journalist in Brazilian media organisations and participated in activist and collective projects including Casa da Cultura Digital, Festival CulturaDigital.Br and Festival Baixo Centro. In 2013, she received a scholarship from the German Alexander Rave Foundation and participated in the innovation team for transmediale, Germany’s largest festival of art and technology. She is a founding member and serves on the supervisory board of the Global Innovation Gathering Network, which brings together innovators and entrepreneurs from around the world, with a focus on the global South. In 2017, Georgia was chosen as a global cultural leader by the European Union. Georgia is also among the people profiled in the 2019 book Generation Share: The Change-Makers Building the Sharing Economy.
Georgia is co-author of books including De baixo para cima (Bottom Up), on culture and digital innovation, edited by Gabriela Agustini and Eliane Costa; Solidarity economy of culture and cultural citizenship in the ABC Region of São Paulo, Brazil: challenges and horizons (UFABC); and Cultura digital, internet e apropriações políticas: Experiências, desafios e horizontes (Digital culture, Internet and political appropriations: experiences, challenges and horizons), organised by researchers and activists Joao Paulo Mehl and Sivaldo Pereira Silva.
All of the changes I see give me hope. It gives me hope to see well-meaning people, working with their feet on the ground and their heads in the sky, building collectively and overcoming conflicts and dissonances for the construction of the commons. A better life for me is a better life for the people around me.Georgia Haddad Nicolau