Episode 17: Growth Is Not the Only Goal

We are constantly told that growth equals success.

That scaling is progress.

That innovation means moving faster, bigger, and further no matter the cost.

But what if growth itself has become the problem?

In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr Tabish Zaman is joined by Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjørkskov, Founder of No Objectives, to challenge one of the most deeply embedded assumptions in entrepreneurship, innovation, and design.

This is not a conversation about sustainability as a checkbox.

It is not about green growth or better metrics.

It is a conversation about repair.

Drawing on Kasper’s work in post-growth design, systems change, and collective action, the episode explores what happens when innovation stops chasing expansion and starts taking responsibility for the harm it leaves behind.

Together, they discuss:

• Why climate collapse and social collapse are the same design failure

• How optimisation without empathy leads to extraction, not progress

• Why growth has replaced meaning and what that has cost us

• How systems are designed to concentrate power rather than distribute care

• Why sustainability is an outcome, not a process

• What regenerative design requires in a world already in overshoot

• Why collective action matters more than individual heroics

• How innovation should be measured by restoration, not valuation

🎙 “Not all innovation builds. Some of it repairs.”

This episode challenges founders, designers, policymakers, and anyone working inside systems that claim to create value while quietly producing harm.

Because if growth is not the goal, we are forced to ask a harder question:

What are we actually building for and who does it serve?

Host: Dr Tabish Zaman

Guest: Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjørkskov (Founder, No Objectives)

Technology Isn’t Neutral. It’s Cultural.

We are constantly told technology is neutral.

That algorithms are objective.

That design is “just technical.”

But technology doesn’t appear from nowhere.

It is built by people, shaped by culture, and assembled through decisions, decisions that increasingly determine who gets a job, who gets a mortgage, and who receives medical care.

In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr Tabish Zaman is joined by Glenn Block (Founder & CEO, ProdSense) to unpack what the tech industry often refuses to name:

Neutrality is not the absence of bias.

It is often the protection of privilege.

This is not a conversation about hype.

It is a conversation about responsibility and what happens when innovation scales faster than care.

Together, they explore:

• Why “neutral technology” is a dangerous myth

• How culture shapes design decisions long before launch

• What product equity means in practice, not as a slogan

• Why exclusion is often designed in, not discovered later

• Who is missing from the rooms where products are imagined

• How startup culture rewards speed, not accountability

• Why accessibility and inclusion cannot be retrofitted after harm

• And what responsible innovation should demand from entrepreneurs, designers, and institutions

🎙 “The bias isn’t in the zeros and ones it’s in how we assemble them.”

This episode is a challenge to founders, innovators, and anyone building systems that touch other people’s lives. Because if technology reflects our culture, we have to ask:

what kind of world are we building and for whom?

We are constantly told that technology is neutral.

That platforms are just tools.

That design decisions are technical — not cultural or political.

But the outcomes tell a different story.

Exclusion.

Inequality.

Invisible users forced to adapt to systems never built with them in mind.

In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr Tabish Zaman is joined by Glenn Block, Founder and CEO of ProdSense, to examine a side of technology we rarely confront: the cultural assumptions and power dynamics embedded into products long before they reach our lives.

This is not a conversation about innovation hype.

It is a conversation about responsibility.

About how culture shapes design.

How design shapes outcomes.

And how technology quietly decides who is seen, who is excluded, and who is expected to adapt.

Together, they explore why “neutral technology” is a dangerous myth, how exclusion is often designed in rather than accidental, who is missing from the rooms where technology is imagined, and why accessibility and inclusion cannot be retrofitted after harm has already occurred.

🎙 “Technology doesn’t just reflect our culture — it enforces it.”

This episode reframes technology not as innovation alone, but as culture made operational.

A conversation about design as power.

About accountability in systems that prioritise speed over care.

And about what it says about us when our tools inherit our blind spots.

At Christmas, we are told stories about generosity and togetherness.

But in many UK cities, the reality looks very different.

Shrinking public services.

Widening inequalities.

Communities carrying more with less.

In this Christmas Special of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr Tabish Zaman returns to Hull — a city often reduced to statistics, but held together by people.

Joined by Paul Hamnett, CEO of the Hull KR Foundation, and Vikki Tate, Employability and Skills Manager, this episode explores how a rugby league club has become a form of social infrastructure.

This is not a story about sport.

It is a story about belonging, dignity, and civic repair — and what happens when community organisations step in where systems fall short.

Together, they explore:

• How sport becomes a vehicle for trust and connection

• Why community organisations now fill gaps left by shrinking public services

• How youth employment, mental health, education, and inclusion intersect

• Why prevention is undervalued — and crisis is always more expensive

• What real inclusion looks like beyond slogans

🎙 “When a sporting institution becomes social infrastructure, it’s worth asking why it had to.”

This episode reframes rugby not as entertainment, but as care.

A conversation about leadership rooted in service.

About communities holding the social fabric together.

And about what Christmas really means in places rarely associated with hope.

Integration is often treated as a checklist.

Learn the language.

Follow the rules.

Fit in quietly.

But real integration doesn’t work that way.

In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr Tabish Zaman speaks with Montasir Mohamed — entrepreneur, business leader, and refugee-turned-citizen in Finland — about what integration actually looks like when it moves beyond policy and into everyday life.

This is not a conversation about charity.

It is not about compliance.

It is about agency, responsibility, trust, and belonging — on both sides.

Together, they explore:

• Why integration fails when only one side carries the burden

• How language becomes dignity rather than assimilation

• Why waiting for stability keeps people stuck

• How fear — not culture — blocks belonging

• Why refugees are framed as dependents instead of contributors

• How entrepreneurship becomes survival, not ambition

• What Finland gets right — and where it still struggles

• Why policies can open doors, but people must walk through them

🎙 “Integration isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something you build.”

This episode challenges the idea that inclusion can be delivered by systems alone.

Because belonging is not granted.

It is built — together.

You Are Being Played by Big Tech

In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr Tabish Zaman speaks with Mona Fowzy — CEO of JaneTech and a software engineer with over 25 years across EA, AOL, Yahoo, CBS, and global scientific labs — about why we don’t need more technology at all.

We need less hype, less manipulation, and far more courage to question the systems shaping our lives.

Together, they explore:

• Why most new technology fixes nothing but extracts everything

• How AI, crypto, and surveillance tools manufacture fear, urgency, and dependency

• How everyday people are turned into test subjects for corporate agendas

• Why engineers have become foot soldiers for political and military power

• How Big Tech’s greed has erased usability, access, and trust

• Why the most “advanced” products are often the most exploitative

• Why real progress won’t come from Silicon Valley, but from ignored communities

• And how Palestine reveals exactly who technology was designed to privilege — and who it was built to erase

🎙 “The real risk isn’t being left behind — it’s being led blindly.”

👉 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@buildersofthebrokenbazaar

In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr Tabish Zaman speaks with Paul Biggar — founder of CircleCI and DarkLang, and co-founder of Tech for Palestine — a leading voice challenging the myth of “neutral” technology.

From inside Silicon Valley’s inner circle to the frontlines of digital justice, Paul unpacks the uncomfortable truths about the industry that claims to build the future.

Together, they explore:

• Why “tech is neutral” was always a lie

• How Silicon Valley’s gatekeepers shape inequality and global politics

• Why founders are rewarded for silence — and punished for moral clarity

• What Israel’s genocide revealed about the tech industry’s complicity

• How Tech for Palestine is helping engineers reclaim their voice

🎙 “Technology isn’t broken — it’s behaving exactly as it was designed. The question is who gets to redesign it.”

👉 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@buildersofthebrokenbazaar

We Don’t Need More Start-Ups. We Need Belonging!

In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr Tabish Zaman speaks with Dr Alexandra David — sociologist at the Institute of Work and Technology in Germany and one of Europe’s leading voices on migration, innovation, and inclusion.

Together, they explore:

• How refugee and migrant entrepreneurs turn displacement into innovation.
• Why “deprived areas” are often the most creative spaces in Europe.
• The real meaning of embeddedness, connectedness, and belongingness.
• Why inclusion begins with trust, not policy.

🎙 “Entrepreneurship isn’t just economic — it’s emotional. It’s how people rebuild belonging.”

👉 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@buildersofthebrokenbazaar

When systems crumble, who still shows up? In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr Tabish Zaman speaks with Debra Allcock Tyler, CEO of the Directory of Social Change — one of the UK’s most fearless voices on charity leadership, advocacy, and justice.

From shrinking council budgets to silenced community voices, Debra unpacks what it means to lead when compassion itself is under attack. Together, they explore:

• Why charities are not a luxury, but the last line of defence for millions.
• How leadership, truth-telling, and advocacy can survive political hostility.
• Why the voluntary sector holds the moral fabric of a democracy fraying at its edges.
• And what happens when those who care are told to “stay out of politics.”

🎙 “Charities don’t exist to fill gaps — they exist to stop people falling through them.”

👉 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@buildersofthebrokenbazaar

Leadership isn’t forged in comfort—it’s shaped in crisis. In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr Tabish Zaman sits down with Dominic Morgan, CEO of Rethink Crisis and Founder of the Authentic Leaders Institute, whose journey from army jail to NHS commissioner reshaped how we understand leadership, integrity, and reform.

From war zones to hospital corridors, Morgan has led through pressure few can imagine. Together they ask:

• Why the NHS doesn’t just face a service crisis—but a leadership one.
• How emotion, integrity, and vulnerability can be strengths, not weaknesses, in high-pressure systems.
• Why every crisis—whether in healthcare or humanity—is also a melting pot for innovation.
• And what it means to build organisations that put quality and people before performance and profit.

🎙 “Leadership isn’t about performance—it’s about presence.”

👉 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@buildersofthebrokenbazaar