Flourish Systems Change

Today, co-host Sarah Ichioka speaks with Professor Dan Hill, a global leader working at the intersection of design, technology, and urban innovation. Their conversation was recorded at, and with the support of, the Melbourne School of Design, where Dan serves as Director.

For our latest episode, co-host Michael Pawlyn interviews musician, producer, visual artist and activist Brian Eno. Their conversation was originally recorded at The Regenerative Architecture Index event in London, organised by UK Architects Declare and Architecture Today.

For this episode, co-host Sarah Ichioka interviews Indigenous musician, scholar, and community organizer Dr Lyla June Johnston, in an extended version of a conversation originally recorded as part of Sarah’s Designing Cities for All Fellowship at Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam.

For this episode, co-hosts Michael Pawlyn and Sarah Ichioka dive into some of the conversations they’ve had on other podcasts where they have been invited to discuss Flourish and regenerative thinking and practice.

To round off the first season of the Flourish podcast, we speak to Sagarika Bhatta, an environmental scientist, climate activist and social entrepreneur based in Kathmandu. We explore how cultivating female and youth leadership in climate action is necessary for a just transition; and discuss the disconnect between the realities of “developed” or “developing” economies in how they mitigate, adapt to and are impacted by the climate crisis.Sagarika Bhatta is environmental scientist, climate activist and social entrepreneur based in Kathmandu. As Chairperson and Founder of activist NGOs PowerShift Nepal and ERST-We Care Nepal, she encourages female leadership and agency building for climate justice. Her work, introducing urban rooftop agriculture to women in the increasingly urbanized Kathmandu Valley, was recognised by the DO School in Berlin, and awarded the Climate Action: Race to Zero Innovation Award 2021. Sagarika was runner up for the NASO Women in Science Award in 2020. She was recently nominated for the Gender Just Climate Solutions Award and is both a former Climate Tracker 2016 Fellow, participant in the Asia Climate Leadership Camp 2019 and recipient of a Korean Green Grant. 

Our guest today is public philosopher Roman Krznaric, who writes about the power of ideas to change society. We speak with Roman today about how rethinking our understanding of time and planning for the long term can achieve regenerative transformation and a better future for generations to come. Roman Krznaric is a public philosopher who writes about the power of ideas to change society. His latest book is The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short Term World. His previous international bestsellers, including Empathy, The Wonderbox and Carpe Diem Regained, have been published in more than 20 languages.

Our guests today, Sumi Dhanarajan and Anna Biswas, are leaders at Forum for the Future, a leading international sustainability nonprofit organisation. For over 25 years, they've been working in partnership with business, governments and civil society to accelerate the shift towards a sustainable future.Understanding how to make changes at a fundamental level requires an integrated way of looking at the world - a systems view. But many of us are not taught to think about problems in this way. That's why we wanted to seek out the perspective of an organisation who put systems thinking front and centre.

In this episode we welcome Jeremy Lent, author of ‘The Patterning Instinct’ and ‘The Web of Meaning’. Jeremy investigates the underlying causes of our Civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future.

This episode welcomes scholar Professor James Ogude to speak about the concept of Ubuntu - a Nguni Bantu term meaning "humanity" that is often translated to, "I am because we are" or "I am because you are". Together, we discuss how the humanities can complement scientific perspectives, and what modern cultures can learn from "banished knowledges" and Indigenous world views, particularly in relation to community and a rebalanced relationship with the Earth.

Today, we feature Crystal Chissell, a multidisciplinary climate action leader and senior member at Project Drawdown. In this conversation, she speaks to Flourish Systems Change about co-solutioning for a climate-resilient future through education, collaboration and communities, and how, sometimes, knowing where our motivations lie might just help to scale our efforts for climate action.