Businessman and philanthropist Simon McKeon donates his time across a wealth of causes, but his hope is that every Australian is inspired to pursue at least one.
Mr McKeon, 55, from Victoria, was named 2011's Australian of the Year at a ceremony at Canberra's Parliament House on Tuesday.
He hopes to spend the year inspiring others to help out the not-for-profit sector, particularly corporations which, he said, needed to do more to help the community.
"It's there to make money, it's there to make a profit," he told reporters.
"But there are many ways in which corporates nowadays can actually share their facilities, their expertise and, of course, their people.
"Of course, they can do more."
In 1994, Mr McKeon was in the middle of a lucrative investment banking career when he decided to go part-time, believing that community work didn't have to wait until retirement.
He's been involved in countless organisations, including World Vision, the Global Poverty Project, as well as Business for Millennium Development, which fosters links business and developing countries.
He recently retired as founding chairman of MS Research Australia. He has been diagnosed with the disease himself.
At one stage, he was paralysed from the hip down and endured blindness for a period of time.
He said it gave him the inspiration to keep fighting for what mattered.
"I encountered what life might have been like if I had been struck with it personally," he said.
Now, the busy father-of-four is the chairman of the CSIRO and the founding president of the federal government's Takeover Panel, a peer review body which monitors corporate takeovers.
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