Adam Mostogl | Founder / Inspirer
illuminate Education Australia

Adam Mostogl is the founder of illuminate Education Australia, a verified social enterprise that has been building real capability in young Australians since 2011. A qualified, registered educator, Adam brings the rare combination of rigorous educational grounding and genuine experience as a community leader and social entrepreneur. That combination is what shapes illuminate's approach - and what every member of the team brings into schools. Through illuminate, Adam and his team have worked with more than 30,000 students across 350+ schools in every state and territory - equipping young people from Year 3 to Year 12 with the confidence, creativity and capability to tackle real problems and contribute to their communities. illuminate is a verified People & Planet First and Social Traders Certified Social Enterprise. Any surplus goes back into the work - not to shareholders - and illuminate has reinvested more than $50,000 of its own funds into subsidising delivery in regional and remote communities. Beyond the classroom, Adam leads The van Diemen Project, an impact and business advisory firm that has supported more than 1,200 people on their business and impact journeys across Australia. He also leads The Shift Lab, Tasmania's first social impact incubator, which has helped start more than 80 new social enterprises. This is not theory - Adam works in the same space he asks young people to step into. Adam is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and a facilitator and mentor with the UNLEASH Global Innovation Lab, connecting illuminate's work directly to the global conversation about what education needs to do next. He has been named one of Australia's 20 most influential educators (2024), most innovative educator (2023) and one of Australia's Top 40 Under 40 Entrepreneurs and Executives (2023), and is a past finalist for Young Australian of the Year (2015). Based in Tasmania with his wife Jessi and their three sons, Timothy, Zachariah and Joel, Adam is building the kind of future he wants them to grow up in - one community, one school, one student at a time.