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

Displacement isn’t just about borders or bombs - it’s about the systems that strip people of dignity and the ways they resist. In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr. Tabish Zaman speaks with Professor Theodore Khoury, one of the world’s leading voices on entrepreneurship in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. From refugee camps in Jordan to the shadow economies of Lebanon, Khoury’s work reveals how survival-driven enterprise challenges the polished models of business schools. Together we explore:

• Why informal economies are not failures but lifelines - and why policymakers get them wrong.
• How masculinities and social norms shape entrepreneurship in war zones, often in unexpected ways.
• Why the “mask is off” for institutions that preach international law yet ignore it in places like Palestine.

🎙 “Entrepreneurship is not always opportunity. Sometimes, it is survival itself.”

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

When war collapses every system, who keeps communities alive? In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr. Tabish Zaman speaks with Alaa Albakour, director of Localized Action, about how Syrians rebuilt from nothing but trust and necessity. From food committees and youth volunteer networks to women-led initiatives that turned leftover aid into dignity, Alaa shows how resilience emerges not from capital, but from care.

🎙 “Real enterprise doesn’t begin with money — it begins with community.”

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

Displacement is too often called a crisis. But what if it’s actually a system — one built to manage people, not empower them? In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr. Tabish Zaman speaks with Dr. Philip Proudfoot, political anthropologist and author of Rebel Populism, about how exile has become permanent, how aid budgets follow politics more than need, and why dignity in displacement is fought for in everyday acts of resistance. From Lebanon’s construction sites to Gaza’s blockade, Proudfoot shows how survival itself becomes deeply political — and why accountability in humanitarianism must mean more than feedback forms.

🎙 “Displacement is not about movement — it’s about rights.”

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

We love the myths: Silicon Valley geniuses, billion-dollar unicorns, “lightbulb moments.” But the truth is far messier. Real innovation is born of necessity — in the relentless grind of failure.

In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr. Tabish Zaman speaks with Professor John Bessant — one of the world’s leading voices on innovation and inclusive entrepreneurship. From Edison’s 10,000 failed filaments to Dyson’s 5,000 prototypes, from $30 eye surgeries that restored sight to millions to Syrian rescue tools made from pool mattresses, John reveals why resilience, not disruption, is the real currency of innovation.

🎙 “Innovation isn’t about Silicon Valley hype — it’s about resilience.”

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

Aid is meant to save lives. But no one wants to depend on it. Families don’t wait in hope for cardboard boxes — they organize, barter, build, and survive. Yet the humanitarian system continues to treat them as passive recipients, delivering assumptions instead of answers. In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr. Tabish Zaman speaks with Marina Kobzeva, a former aid recipient turned humanitarian leader, about what’s broken in the global aid system — and what real accountability should look like. From post-Soviet Azerbaijan to two decades inside the sector, Marina shares why 90% of aid money never reaches communities, how colonial mindsets still shape aid delivery, and why true innovation lives in mutual aid, remittances, and grassroots resilience.

🎙 “People don’t want charity — they want agency.”

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

Every “smart” AI system — from ChatGPT to self-driving cars — runs on unseen human labor. Behind the algorithms are people in refugee camps, conflict zones, and struggling economies, quietly training the machines that shape our world. In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr. Tabish Zaman speaks with Iva Gumnishka — founder of Humans in the Loop and Cartier Women’s Initiative Award winner — about harnessing technology to create dignified livelihoods for displaced people from Syria, Ukraine, Palestine, and beyond. We explore the hidden workforce behind AI, the ethics of the digital economy, the environmental cost of technology, and what it takes to build sustainable businesses rooted in dignity, not disruption.

🎙 “AI doesn’t just run on data — it runs on human lives.”

https://www.youtube.com/@buildersofthebrokenbazaar