Founded in 2000, we are a creative entrepreneurial firm that is first and foremost rooted in love. In fact—you could say we are in love with love: with ideas, with innovation, with those around us and everything we do and accomplish.
our three loves
At Engage, we believe in engaging life through our three loves: community, compassion and creativity. It is our hope that our simple ideas, whether it be designing websites or business ventures, can all be incubators of these loves.
Community We believe in community that is fluid, always changing, yet at the same time intrinsically together, sharing in friendship, in interests and in resources.
Compassion We believe in compassion that can transform and pave new ways of living. Caring for the people, places and things around us, man, creature, earth and sky should all benefit from the work we do.
Creativity We believe in creativity that is innate to all of us. Whether you are a painter with a love of hues or an a scientist with a love of numbers, creativity exists and thrives all around us.
our history
Engage was born in mid-2000 as Engaged Design, when Joel Hickenbottom was embarking as a self-employed website designer. At the time, Joel was just a kid at 18 years of age and no prior job experience. This endeveour began the 8-year journey into hundreds of projects, many great friendships and priceless knowledge.
Since 2000, we have seen us grow from having a very narrow view on our business and just trying to pay the bills to maturing into a broad view of using our ideas in creating better ways of living amidst the global landscape that is ravaged with poverty, disease and injustice. Nothing was ever started without it being a small idea first. We have seen how even our silly ideas locally can engage in change globally.
Today, we stand as Engage. Short and sweet. Simple, yet strong. Engaging the creative. Engaging the entrepreneurial. Engaging the other.
Engaging you. Engaging the world.
our vision
At Engage, we are fixated on using our ideas combined with our talents to change the way people see themselves, see their ideas and see the world. This is because we believe that in no matter what we create, design or sell, all we do connects us to the world here and abroad.
Our three loves are our way of life, where community dances with creativity and creativity dances with compassion, each interweaving and interlocking with one another. As our way of life, they permeate our projects whether they be developing a new website for the local fair or funding a business in a developing nation.
We hope that at the end of the day, all might find belonging and connection through our passion, innovation, ideas, and projects.
It is our hope that we might all see our world as one beautiful work of art, never complete, but always waiting for each and every unique input on the canvas that is life.
