Activism has entered a new age with social media and online petition platforms powering the biggest global protests of our time. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated engagement in activism and the murder of George Floyd sparked the largest racial justice movement in UK history, with more than 5 million Britons signing petitions and attending protests in support of Black Lives Matter. Never before have we been more connected to the causes we care about and motivated to demand new solutions to the issues that impact our lives.

In this episode of AKQA Insight we welcome Kajal Odedra, Executive Director UK at Change.org, the world’s largest petition platform with over 300 million users. Shaped by a childhood steeped in racism and injustice, Kajal was determined to help elevate the disadvantaged in society and amplify their voices. Her message is clear; our individual difference is our super-power, finding solidarity with fellow non-conformists is what forges change, disrupting the status quo is necessary to reclaim our democracy. Kajal puts this case forward in her TedX talk and subsequent book Do Something: Activism for Everyone. She’s the founder of the People of Colour in Campaigns network which aims to increase diversity in the UK’s campaign sector, is an Ada's List advisor for women in STEM and a trustee for Save The Children.

Allyson Williams MBE was born and raised in cosmopolitan Trinidad with Carnival as a way of life. Part of the Windrush Generation, she responded to the call from the British Government for Commonwealth workers to help rebuild Britain following WWII, and in 1969 she joined the NHS to train as a midwife. She later married Vernon Williams, one of Notting Hill Carnival’s founding members, and in 1980 they formed the renowned Genesis mas band. For the past 40 years, Allyson has played an instrumental role in the development of Notting Hill Carnival and in 2008 was invited to become a member of the Board of Trustees. She still performs on the streets of Notting Hill every August Bank Holiday with the Genesis band, which is now lead by their children, echoing the generations before. The Windrush migrants who founded Notting Hill Carnival brought with them an explosion of music, dance and art that transformed British culture, and the masqueraders who inherited the passion for the art form continue to unite communities, champion inclusion and celebrate freedom.  Allyson was awarded an MBE for her services to the midwifery profession in 2002 and was recently featured in British Vogue for her contributions to Notting Hill Carnival. 

It’s a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. Human beings, we’re taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought, but is it true? Are humans inevitably destined for cruelty or kindness? Representing a new wave of thinkers; bestselling author and historian Rutger Bregman joins Chris Henderson, Managing Director of AKQA in Amsterdam, to discuss the ideas from his latest book Humankind: A Hopeful History. Rutger puts forward a new argument: that it is realistic as well as revolutionary to assume that people are good, and demonstrates that we possess an innate capacity for cooperation and compassion. Rutger’s writing has featured in The Washington Post and The Guardian, and he has been twice nominated for the prestigious European Press Prize for his work at De Correspondent. He is perhaps best known for challenging the world’s billionaires to talk about taxes as a solution to systemic inequality at the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, and his subsequent interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News which went viral.

We are the ancestors of our future; a generation who will either be celebrated for its activism or blamed for its apathy, and we have the opportunity to rebuild in a way that benefits society and ecology. What can we learn about sustainability from the diversity, wisdom and value systems of the oldest communities on earth? What is planet-centric design and why must we incorporate it into design thinking? In this episode of AKQA Insight Lily Cole joins Alisia Muscat, Managing Director of AKQA in Australia and New Zealand for a conversation about her book 'Who Cares Wins: A Case for Optimism in Our Changing World', which features interviews with Sir David Attenborough, Elon Musk and Extinction Rebellion co-founder Dr Gail Bradbrook. Immediately recognisable as one of the world’s top models, Lily has appeared on stage and screen since the age of 16. In 2013 she co-founded Impossible.com, a B-Corp certified company that uses technology to solve social and environmental problems. She holds an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Glasgow for her contribution to humanitarian and environmental causes, has spoken at Davos and is a patron of the Environmental Justice Foundation.

 

The only way to consistently discover something new or unique is to explore the unknown. By choosing to remain open to all the challenges we face as parents, businesses, communities and nations together, we are choosing to learn, adapt and grow. What we do now creates our future. Never has it been more important to rally and test our values and purpose. Jim Huether, CEO of Hyperice joins Sam Sterling, AKQA Managing Director in Greater China and Japan, for a conversation about reinvention and what it means to be truly innovative.

Derek Owusu is a writer, poet and winner of the 2020 Desmond Elliott Prize for his novel That Reminds Me; the book he began writing while he was in a mental health facility in 2019. Derek joins AKQAs Rachel Taylor for a conversation about what it’s like to be Black in a primarily white industry and how we can help elevate young Black people, so their voices are heard. That Reminds Me is the first novel to be published by Stormzy’s imprint #Merky Books. It centres around the character “K”, who Derek created to help himself explore how his early life in foster care could have led to his diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. He discovered a love of literature while studying Exercise Science at university when he was 23. Unable to afford a change of degree, he began reading voraciously and sneaking into English Literature lectures whenever possible. In 2016 he joined the multi-award-winning podcast Mostly Lit and later collated, edited and contributed to SAFE: On Black British Men Reclaiming Space, a timely anthology exploring the conflicts and complexities of being a Black man today.

It’s through storytelling, not statistics that people make sense of the world. Popular media and entertainment have been influencing our perspectives and behaviours for over a century, and the universal adoption of streaming, new formats and multi-platform experiences have altered our relationship with visual entertainment forever. Audience expectations for authentic, engaging stories has never been higher, but how do you find those writers and nurture their captivating narratives to the screen? How will the current events that are changing our world influence the structure of the entertainment industry for years to come? Multi-award-winning television producer Liz Kilgarriff; former Senior Commissioning Editor for BBC Drama and CEO of Firebird Pictures, joins AKQA Managing Partner Sam Kelly for a conversation about storytelling in the 21st century. 

The iconic boutique hotelier and New York Times bestselling author, Chip Conley, helped Airbnb’s founders turn their fast-growing tech start-up into a global hospitality brand by becoming a mentor and an intern at age 52. In his manifesto, Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder, Chip ignites a conversation about age and ageism in the workplace. In this episode of AKQA Insight he shares his own story of growth and transformation in his 50s with AKQA Chief People Officer, Amy Oliver. They discuss how we can re-think our mindset and re-define the second half of our lives, and Chip explains why he was inspired to build the world’s first midlife wisdom school, the Modern Elder Academy.

In 2019 scientists warned that our civilisation is in crisis and that we can no longer feed our population a healthy diet while balancing planetary resources. Food is threatening our future. In this episode of AKQA Insight Miriam Plon Sauer, Strategy Director at AKQA Copenhagen welcomes Carolyn Steel; architect and author of Sitopia, and 2013’s Hungry City. Carolyn is an established influential voice on food and cities across academia, industry and the arts; her 2009 TED talk has received over 1.2 million views, and she’s lectured at leading institutions such as The University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics. Together they discuss her provocative and exhilarating vision for how food can save the world.

Jeremiah Emmanuel BEM; youth activist, entrepreneur and author, joined AKQA Managing Partner Sam Kelly for a conversation about his unique journey, the valuable lessons he’s learnt along the way, and the impact - positive and negative - that he’s seeing Covid-19 having on the youth of today. Jeremiah’s hotly-anticipated autobiography Dreaming in a Nightmare: Finding a Way Forwards in a World That’s Holding You Back, is set for release in August by Stormzy’s publishing house #Merky Books. He has been elected to the UK Youth Parliament and was deputy young mayor of Lambeth. He founded BBC Radio 1Xtra Youth Council & EMNL Consultancy and is a member of the Gates Foundation, a youth ambassador for the Big Change Charitable Trust, and a Founding Member of Conduit London. In 2017, he was awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM).