Storyteller Arc
The career narrative, in full.
Chapter 1: Psychology, a Crash, and the Question of Change
Ed started with psychology, the question of how people actually change, not in theory but in real conditions. A Bachelor of Psychology at the University of Newcastle (2008–2011), then travelling.
In 2012, at 23, a motorcycle accident in India changed the trajectory. A collision with a truck near Tirunelveli left him with a lacerated liver, fractured pelvis, and broken arm. During emergency surgery in a rural Indian hospital, something clarified: a sense of missed time, missed opportunities, and a decision to stop drifting.
He came home and enrolled in a Master of Public Health at the University of Wollongong (2012–2013). The combination would define the career: understanding behaviour at the individual level, then designing systems that work at the population level.
An early insight stuck: the hardest part of public health isn't the logic — it's fitting the tools to real contexts and measuring what actually matters. That question runs through every role since.
Chapter 2: Colombia, Building a Community From the Ground Up
After the Master's, Ed moved to Comuna 13, a neighbourhood on the western hillside of Medellín, Colombia, where economic opportunity was limited by structural barriers. In 2016, he founded Primed with founding members Andy and Casey, building trust over time by staying, listening, and contributing consistently.
The starting point was simple: English skills are one of the clearest economic equalizers a young person in a disadvantaged community can access. Tourism was booming in Medellín. The gap between local communities and international visitors was maintained partly by language.
Primed's answer: An immersive English-language and life-skills program that leveraged the emerging tourism sector. Not traditional education, but bilateral cultural exchange between teachers and students, where storytelling brought attention to local initiatives. Graduates became tour guides, cultural ambassadors, and community educators. Their own neighbourhoods became sources of dignity and income rather than subjects of outside narration.
What was built over 10 years
The Storytellers program grew into an 18-month formation: English language (CEFR-aligned), personal narrative, community tourism application. Stiven joined the program at 16 and within four years was a working tour guide who had purchased an apartment for his family. Juan became a bilingual storyteller guide and community leader. 10 graduates are currently working, generating income from community tourism.
International recognition
The full story, from motorcycle crash in India to building a community in Medellín.
El Espectador: "Las personas carecen de oportunidades, no de habilidad"
Recon Colombia: Storyteller Formation (2019)
TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice (2021)
W Radio: SAP Social Innomarathon Finalist (Socialab, 2021)
Chapter 3: Australia, National Systems at Scale
Back in Australia, Ed brought the same thinking to national-scale systems: how do you deliver information across federated networks, keep things consistent while preserving local autonomy, and turn national data into guidance that frontline practitioners can actually use?
The pattern across both roles
The same architecture repeated at every scale:
Whether it's a new substance alert reaching harm reduction workers across 8 jurisdictions, or a mental health communication standard being adopted across 31 independent health networks, or a Storyteller learning that their neighbourhood's story has international value, the core challenge is the same: get the right information to the right person, in a way they can act on, with governance they trust.
Chapter 4: The Break, Building the Infrastructure
In late 2025, the NCCRED contract ended. Rather than immediately re-enter the job market, Ed spent ~8 weeks building.
The premise: the systems thinking from 13 years of national programs could be applied at business scale. Small businesses and community organisations face the same structural problems as national programs, just with fewer resources and more urgency.
All deployed on custom domains with working backends — production systems, not prototypes.
Chapter 5: The International Profile
The arc closes in a loop: the same person who built community infrastructure in Medellín is now co-authoring peer-reviewed publications that document the methods and building platforms that put them into practice.