ROOMCommunity Professional Rooms
Early development · first prototype being built now

Bring the professional to the community.

ROOM is a not-for-profit, open project creating Community Professional Rooms — private, well-equipped rooms in local places where people can meet the lawyer, specialist, counsellor or adviser they need, without the long drive and without having to wrestle with technology.

Bring ROOM to your town See how it works
COMMUNITY PROFESSIONAL ROOM1:58 pm

Welcome, Margaret

Your appointment with Dr Smith begins at 2:00 pm.

Please take a seat
The problem

A video call isn't the same as a professional service.

Seeing a professional often means privacy, documents printed or scanned, ID checked, signatures witnessed — and for many people, help with the technology itself. In small communities, it can also mean hours on the road.

Today A day lost to one appointment

  • Long drives to a regional centre — or a city
  • Being told to "just join the meeting and upload your documents"
  • No private, quiet place to talk at home
  • Older people and the less tech-confident left behind

With ROOM A short trip down the road

  • A private room at the local library, hall or neighbourhood house
  • The professional runs the cameras, screens, printing and scanning
  • You just sit down and talk — like attending an office
  • A big, obvious HELP button if anything goes wrong
The idea

One room. Many professions. Built to spread.

A room, not an app

A known, properly equipped, private space — with screen, cameras, printer and scanner — that the person attending doesn't have to set up or understand.

Profession-neutral

The same room can serve lawyers, doctors, psychologists, accountants, mediators, government services and more. It belongs to the community, not to one provider.

Open by design

We plan to publish the room standard, reference designs and core software openly, so any capable council or community group can build its own room.

Who it could serve

The professional you need, closer to home.

ROOM isn't a legal product or a telehealth product. It's shared community infrastructure that many services can use.

LawyersMediatorsMedical specialistsAllied healthPsychologistsCounsellorsAccountantsFinancial advisersConveyancersNDIS servicesGovernment servicesMigration advisers
Where rooms could live

In places people already trust.

Libraries
Neighbourhood houses
Council offices
Community centres
Community health
Mobile rooms

Like the mobile library, a fitted-out mobile room could one day travel between small towns that can't justify a permanent facility of their own.

Where we're up to

Honest about the stage we're at.

ROOM is an active early-stage project, not a finished product. We're building and testing the first working room before we promise anything to anyone.

  1. Concept & designThe room, the three-camera idea and the open approach
  2. A home for the projectSpreadable Ideas Inc; room.org.au secured
  3. Prototype 0.1Bench-testing cameras, video, printing, scanning and dropouts
  4. First pilot communityOne real room, with real people, in a real town

Could your community host a ROOM?

We'd love to hear from councils, libraries, neighbourhood houses, community organisations, professionals and technology volunteers.

Register your interest