Paul Miller had the job of opening Thinking Digital (#tdc) at the Sage, Gateshead this morning with an inspiration call to the audience to use technology as an enable for social enterprise.

He’s keen to encourage us to turn away from the screen and do interesting stuff in the real work. “Technologies should be using digital to tackle big issues not throwing sheep around on screen,” he said.

During his conference presentation he explored the alignment of social issues and technology. He left the audiences with two inspiring social enterprise projects in which he’s involved.

• Social Innovation Camp is a project whereby technologists are invited to submit ideas to create better solutions to social problems in the real world. The best ideas are selected and developed over the course of a weekend by invited technologists. The next event is in Scotland 19 to 21 June.

• The School of Everything is a community that helps learners find local teachers in all subjects, worldwide. Teachers register online and create a personal page giving information on their lessons, the qualifications offered and the format in which they teach. 15,000 learners have signed up.

Miller challenged the audience to use technology as an enabler to create new social enterprise models. As Tim O’Reilly said Work on Stuff that Matters.