Sagalee Omer is a founder, speaker and Community Architect redefining how sport, culture and storytelling build belonging at scale. He is the founder of Shooters Shoot, a community led sport and wellbeing movement that has grown from local basketball events into a nationally recognised platform for youth engagement and inclusion across Australia.
Under his leadership, Shooters Shoot has raised over $100,000 for community initiatives, delivered therapy sessions, built and donated bikes to families, and launched culturally grounded school programs designed to strengthen identity and social cohesion. Sagalee also led Australia’s first major basketball event featuring Muslim hijab referees, setting a new benchmark for representation and inclusion within Australian sport.
Beyond sport, Sagalee is the creator of Locationest, a street journalism platform that documents and amplifies the stories of everyday people, using storytelling as a tool for connection and cultural understanding.
Sagalee serves on the UNHCR Refugee Advisory Group, contributing his expertise in belonging, participation and community leadership to national and international policy conversations.
Through keynotes, panels and workshops, Sagalee equips leaders with practical frameworks to build belonging at scale and design communities where participation becomes meaningful, and identity is strengthened.
Talking Points
From Participation to Belonging: Designing Spaces Where People Feel Seen
In every community, organisation or institution there is a deeper human truth: people want to be seen, felt and understood.From Participation to Belonging: Designing Spaces Where People Feel Seen
Through approaching and documenting over a thousand strangers and building community platforms across sport and storytelling, Sagalee has witnessed a consistent pattern. The moments that create the greatest impact are not the loudest ones. They are the moments where someone feels genuinely seen.
This keynote explores how belonging is created when visibility is intentional. Whether in classrooms, corporate teams, sporting environments or community spaces, when people feel recognised for who they are, trust accelerates, engagement deepens and transformation becomes possible.
Create the space. Hold the conversation. Watch what unfolds.
Key Takeaways:
• Understand why visibility is the foundation of belonging
• Learn how to create environments where people feel heard and valued
• Discover how intentional conversations unlock connection and growth
• Build cultures where recognition drives trust and engagement
Turning Lived Experience Into Strategic Advantage
Lived experience is often invited into rooms but rarely embedded into decision-making.Turning Lived Experience Into Strategic Advantage
As a founder, Community Architect and member of the UNHCR Refugee Advisory Group, Sagalee explores how organisations can move beyond symbolic representation and use lived experience as a strategic leadership asset.
Through case studies from grassroots sport, youth engagement and advisory spaces, this keynote provides practical systems for embedding authenticity into culture, policy and leadership.
Key Takeaways:
• Shift from performative inclusion to structural inclusion
• Understand how trust is built through proximity and credibility
• Learn how to design programs that reflect the communities they serve
• Strengthen leadership legitimacy through grounded storytelling
Everything You Need Is Already Within You: Identity as Your Compass
In a world filled with comparison, noise and external validation, identity becomes your compass.Everything You Need Is Already Within You: Identity as Your Compass
Drawing from his journey arriving in Australia and growing up in environments where he often felt like he didn’t belong, Sagalee shares how understanding his identity became the foundation for direction and confidence.
Rather than searching externally for answers, he discovered that clarity comes from knowing who you are, what you value and where you come from. This internal compass not only shaped his own path, but led him to create platforms like Shooters Shoot and Locationest — initiatives built to help others feel seen, heard and understood.
Through personal stories and reflections, this keynote challenges audiences to stop measuring themselves against the world around them and instead build a grounded sense of identity that guides their decisions, resilience and purpose.
Key Takeaways:
• Understand why identity is the foundation of confidence
• Learn how self-awareness provides direction in uncertain environments
• Reframe success through alignment rather than comparison
• Develop an internal compass to navigate life with clarity and purpose
Speaking the Language of the Next Generation: Storytelling, Identity and Connection
Young people are not disengaged. They are misunderstood.Speaking the Language of the Next Generation: Storytelling, Identity and Connection
In this keynote, Sagalee explores how storytelling, social media and digital culture shape identity and behaviour in the next generation. Drawing from grassroots youth work, school programs and street journalism, he unpacks how leaders can move beyond surface engagement and genuinely connect.
Understanding the psychology of the next generation is not about trends. It is about cultural literacy.
Key Takeaways:
• Understand how storytelling shapes identity in the digital age
• Recognise social media as a psychological ecosystem, not just a platform
• Learn practical tools to build trust with Gen Z and emerging leaders
• Strengthen intergenerational leadership through cultural fluency
Video
Sagalee Omer: Everything's working out for you
Sagalee Omer looked around at the world he grew up in and decided to build the one he needed. Not metaphorically. Bikes for kids with no way to get around. Free therapy for a community that didn't talk about it. A storytelling platform to put everyday people on screen. A basketball tournament that's raised over $100K to fund it all. Four projects, one mission: young people who are seen, heard, and have the infrastructure to become who they are. The ambition is the same as any founder on this show. So is the discipline - knowing what to ship, when to push, and when to stop. What's different is who's investing: not a cap table, but a community. Sagalee is still in his twenties, came up through Blackbird Foundation's Protostars program, and has thought harder about identity, mission, and building for the long term than most people in this industry with a decade on him. Theia Gabatan from Blackbird Foundation sits down with Sagalee to talk about where the mission came from, what founders can take from building without institutional backing, why he calls himself a director not a founder, and the belief he holds that most people don't.
