DrEdward Johnson

Ed is a social entrepreneur with degrees in linguistic anthropology and speech pathology. He worked in rural and remote Australia (mainly in Wirdajuri and Kamilaroi communities) for 10 years as a speech pathologist before moving into academia. Ed completed his PhD in 2021 at the University of Sydney which focused on the phenomenologies of rural families of children with intellectual disabilities, and humanistic digital allied health support delivery and capacity-building with National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants across rural and remote Australia. Based on the findings, he co-founded Umbo to support Australians in underserved communities and populations to access speech pathology and occupational therapy. Umbo has saved NDIS participants over $25million in direct service costs since its inception, and continues to invest 50% of profits into funding services for people who can't afford to see a therapist.

Ed was previously the Practice Education Lead in Speech Pathology at Western Sydney University (WSU), responsible for the design and rollout of the WSU speech pathology clinic, and for developing and managing the curriculum and community rollout of WSU's practice education program. Ed's current research is focused on telehealth in rural and remote Australia, ethnography of social enterprise in rural and indigenous communities, social return on investment in veterinary medicine, and innovative models of support provision and community capacity-building with marginalised peoples.

Ed has over a decade of experience working on boards in the not-for-profit, peak body, and social enterprise sectors. He was a 2021 Westpac Social Change Fellow. Ed also served on the board of Services for Australian Rural and Remote Allied Health (SARRAH) for 7 years, with 3 years as president. During his tenure as president, SARRAH secured $9.6m in funding to develop the Allied Health Rural Generalist Program, to train and deploy rural generalists across Australia.

Ed now lives on Dharug land and is the coordinator of the Remote and Rural Enterprise Program, which aims to support indigenous and rural communities to create and consolidate sustainable social change in the bush. He lives by the quote from his favourite existentialist, Franz Kafka: "Do what is right, not what is acceptable."