Business Daily

Find out more about the DNA ancestry company aiming to increase its appeal across a wider range of ethnic groups. They're attempting to correct the racial bias in DNA databases, so customers get a fuller story of who they are.

Genetic studies have primarily been done nearly exclusively in European populations to date and DNA databases are four to one skewed in favour of European DNA.

But diversity drives are unearthing genetic treasure. Slavery scrubbed the family histories of generations. Genetics is helping African Americans, for one, piece together their stolen stories.

In this episode David Reid hears the story of Jamila Zheng who found her ancestral home and relatives she didn't know existed after taking a DNA test. We also hear from Dr Steven Micheletti, Population Geneticist at 23andMe and Dr Anjali Shastri, Senior Research Programme Manager at 23andMe about the diversity drive at their company.

Producer / Presenter: David Reid

Ever heard of the term non-promotable task? Well, if you’re a woman, the chances are you’ve been doing a lot of them at work.

Leanna Byrne speaks to the authors of The No Club, a book tracking the problems that arise when women are tasked with doing mindless jobs. We are talking about the kind of jobs that make managers happy, but won’t help you get on in your career.

Linda Babcock, Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund, and Laurie Weingart—the original “No Club”— join us to talk through why women are disproportionately asked and expected to take on these tasks, why that leaves women overcommitted and underutilised and how companies are therefore forfeiting revenue, productivity, and top talent.

Presenter/producer: Leanna Byrne

(Photo: Stressed woman at work. Credit: Getty Images)

Floriade is a huge horticulture exhibition taking place every 10 years. It's in the Dutch city of Almere this year. For 6 months, visitors will see displays of plants and flowers, horticultural innovation – and proposed solutions to global environmental problems, especially in the area of urban housing.

Matthew Kenyon has been to visit and hear about the challenges of putting it together during the pandemic and the costs and benefits to the local area of hosting it. Plus a look at some of the displays and questions over whether there is a future for these big, set-piece events.

One of the many casualties of the war in Yemen is the FSO Safer, a floating storage facility which holds one million barrels of crude oil. No maintenance has been carried out on the vessel for years, and experts believe it’s in danger or exploding or leaking oil in to the Red Sea at any moment.

The UN has previously unsuccessfully tried to resolve the issue, but David Gressly, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, thinks the next few weeks could be vital, and is calling on the private sector and individuals to help fund an operation to transfer the oil to a safer vessel.

We hear from Tim Lenderking, US Special Envoy for Yemen, Ghiwa Nakat of Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa and Yemen’s Minister for Water and the Environment Tawfeeq Al Sharjabi.

Joe Tidy travels to El Salvador where almost everything can be paid for using the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. After President Bukele invested heavily in Bitcoin some people are questioning the long-term impact of such a move.

For some money has flowed in from mysterious investors, but others like local economist Tatiana Maraquin think the country’s economy cannot handle the fluctuations in the value of the cryptocurrency.

Joe visits a veterinary surgery, which offers huge discounts on treatment if it is bought using the Chivo bitcoin wallet app.

(Photo: Bitcoin poster)

Adaptive fashion, or stylish clothes for people who have a disability have not always been widely available, especially for those who use a wheelchair. Recently though, a fashion revolution has begun.

We hear from the women pushing the industry to change. British Somali Faduma Farah launched a fellowship for designers to come up with an inclusive collection that would be modelled at London Fashion Week. We speak to Faduma and the winning designer Harriet Eccleston, as well as stylist and influencer Heide Herkes who was one of the models featured on the runway during the show – the first ever to include wheelchair users. Plus, Maria O'Sullivan-Abeyratne, CEO and founder of Adaptista, tells us about the inclusive online shopping platform she’s building for the adaptive fashion market.

Presenter: Vivienne Nunis

Meet the community groups trying to make energy more accessible and affordable.

Laura Heighton-Ginns visits a fuel poverty workshop in the UK and hears about the devastating effects of not being able to afford food and why it’s so important to have a secure energy supply.

Laura hears from Soren Hermansen - the Director of the Energy Academy on the island of Samso in Denmark. Samso controls its own energy supply and advises other communities on how they can do the same.

And we find out about a project in Tanzania run by Janet Maro. Janet's project powers a centre for training farmers using experimental technology to harness the energy from the sun and collect rain water.

Presenter / Producer: Laura Heighton-Ginns

Singapore has become the latest country to allow egg freezing for non-medical reasons. That is a method of preserving a woman’s fertility so she can try and have children at a later date. With an increasing number of companies offering this and other fertility benefits as a workplace perk, Ivana Davidovic asks if this always good news for women?

Carol Chen, a businesswoman based in Singapore, explains why she would have loved to have had a chance to freeze her eggs closer to home, rather than have to travel thousands of miles to the US to do the procedure there. She also hopes that other counties in Asia will soon make the process more streamlined

Just under 40% of large companies in the US - so those over 500 employees - offer fertility benefits and the numbers are rising fast. Now even Europe, with its much more generous national health services, is starting to follow suit. Co-founder of a fertility benefit company based in Berlin, Jenny Saft, explains why.

American entertainment lawyer Nyasha Foy tells her egg freezing story and the role that her employer played, while also considering specific issues faced by black women. Lecturer Lucy van de Wiel warns that employers having influence over their staff's fertility choices may not always mean good news for women.

And Californian fertility doctor Aimee Eyvazzadeh, also known as the “egg whisperer”, talks about why she throws egg freezing parties and why we might need to accept that women will increasingly give birth in their 40s and 50s.

Presented and produced by Ivana Davidovic

Image: A woman injecting hormones in preparation for egg extraction. Credit: Getty Images

As part of the Business Daily series Million by 30, Sam Fenwick meets Elwinder Singh and hears the story behind his private healthcare company Connect and Heal.

The business coordinates healthcare appointments, tests, treatment and medication for six million paying customers. He explains where the idea came from and why he moved thousands of miles to set up, finance and grow his company. Find out how he manages such a big business and what his plans are to grow the enterprise further.

Presenter: Sam Fenwick

Oil and gas prices have risen sharply after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and as a result many countries have signalled a move towards more renewable energy. One of the challenges for the future will be how to store energy produced by wind and solar power so it can be used at the right times. Professor Seamus Garvey and a team at the University of Nottingham tell us about their prototype machine which uses compressed air and heated gravel to tackle this problem. We also hear from Professor Mara Prentiss of the University of Harvard on the science behind these new ideas, and Heymi Bahar of the International Energy Agency to give an overview of this sector at the moment.

Presenter/Producer: Hannah Bewley