Step into the Starlight Express Room at Sydney Children's Hospital, where superheroes in silver capes are transforming kid's hospital experiences. Meet Captain Starlight, a character from outer space who brings magic, laughter and play to seriously ill children and their families.

Through intimate conversations with the team behind this groundbreaking program, discover how they're revolutionising children's healthcare by giving kids back their sense of control and joy - one game, song, or silly moment at a time.

This is a story about the power of play and the importance of letting kids be kids, even in the most challenging circumstances.

Newmark is a Primary school in Melbourne, Australia that has proven a new education model. In a world with ever-increasing complexity, Newmark shows us a powerful future vision for education today that challenges traditional learning models.

Through the foundations of teamwork, design and solving real problems in the community, they are equipping children with the emotional strength and practical know-how to contribute to and change their community for the better. So they can make a meaningful mark on today, and tomorrow.

Join us as we meet the children, parents and educators to understand the approach to learning and the magic that makes this school special.

Celeste Carnegie leads community engagement for Indigitek; they exist to increase the participation and success of Indigenous people in the tech industry.

During our conversation, we cover several subjects:

- Celeste's journey to Indigitek

- The importance of community engagament

- The reality of some of the challenges Indigitek is working to solve

- Practical tips for how to get started creating a welcoming experience for first nations people in the workplace.

Alison Coward is the founder of Bracket; they partner with ambitious, forward-thinking companies to help them build more collaborative and high-performing team cultures.

Alison is also the author of 'A Pocket Guide To Effective Workshops', which demystifies the design and facilitation of great workshops.

During our conversation, we cover several subjects:

- How we get it wrong when we gather in the traditional context of meetings

- Tips on how to apply workshopping techniques to improve collaboration across other group interactions

- The cultural impacts that result from enabling more meaningful collaboration in organisations

Arielle Gamble is the Director and Co-founder of Groundswell Giving, a giving platform for climate action, delivering grants to strategic, high-impact climate advocacy in Australia. 

During our thought-provoking conversation, we cover several topics:

How do we increase equity and access to education so no one is left behind?

Creatable is an education company, led by Greg Attwells, on a mission to solve this challenge. Creatable connects the companies shaping the future of work with the professional development of teachers with a strong emphasis on increasing the inclusion of underrepresented groups in education. In this episode, we understand more about Greg’s personal journey to build Creatable fuelled by his own deeply held values around gender diversity.

Matthew Taylor is the Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts, a UK organisation that has been committed to solving the biggest societal challenges for over 260 years. In July 2017 Matthew published the report ‘Good Work’; an independent review into modern employment, which was commissioned by UK Prime Minister, Theresa May. 

During our thought-provoking conversation, we cover several topics: 

- How to define and design ‘good work’ for individuals and society. 

- The need to change how we value work in our society and how we might bridge the divide between manual labour and thinking jobs. 

- The potential for a human-centred design approach to impact policymakers and reduce anxiety in their work. 

In this episode, we speak to Rebecca Cross to get her experiences in helping to manage back to back national crises in Australia with the 2019 bushfires and 2020 COVID outbreaks. We cover a variety of topics around government response including taking a whole of government approach to establishing basics to tackle big complicated issues and factoring in both team and personal wellbeing during times of crisis.

“What we found in ACT government, that this is very much a health response, but it has really major consequences across every area of government.”

How do you know if you’re on the right track in a crisis? (09:12)

“So I think having that ‘listening tour’ where very early on you get out and hear how people are feeling, and it’s what they're feeling as well what they're thinking that’s important, then reflecting back to them in the model we put forward the things which they’d been looking for.”  

How to manage new information on a daily basis?  (16:50)

“If you have the right governance and the right structures and the right information flows and processes for taking decisions, if you got the basic things right, I think it's easier to flex and pivot.”  

How clarity and alignment can give you the headspace to tackle big issues (24:50)

“I do find that those really simple things, once you put them all together, you can take a sigh of relief and say, ‘ok, that’s all done’, now we can all focus on the other things which we need to be putting our minds to’.”

Access Canberra Covid Hotline: https://www.covid19.act.gov.au/news-articles/new-covid-19-helpline-for-canberrans

Jobs For Canberrans Fund: https://www.covid19.act.gov.au/business-and-work/jobs-for-canberrans

Farhana Yamin, is the international climate lawyer responsible for getting the target of net zero emissions by 2050 included in the Paris accord. She came up with the goal after growing tired of the incremental improvements around the globe.

We discuss her recent work where Farhana has moved away from a ‘top-down’, expert-driven approach for change. Instead, she now advocates a decentralised approach that empowers people at the local level to be both thinkers and doers in creating solutions for climate change. Farhana has observed that this approach avoids the siloed thinking of the past and leads to more creative, integrated solutions that are necessary to address climate change.

(00:54) Farhana’s personal connection to the environment and journey to becoming an international climate change lawyer.

“There was a wave of enthusiasm in my mental model that I can use law to shape and influence the economy through a little piece of environmental law.” 

(11:55) Finding and speaking Farhana’s truth

“In the last few years, I’ve been more vocal and using my own voice as an academic, public speaker, and activist. I can speak with more integrity and truth on what works and doesn’t work.” 

(22:27) False promises from the Paris Agreement

“Why are we celebrating the Paris agreement? This is not a story of not getting it, this is a story of deliberate, willful, planned, corporate neglect. That story will hopefully be told. ”

(50:12) How we frame problems to build advocacy and action

“You need to take radical action, build your movement... you’re not going to write a report and change the world.”

As an executive producer at VICE, Alex Chitty talks about the unique blend of honesty, determination and courage that he and his teams employ to capture and report on some of the most challenging, yet powerful, geopolitical stories from around the world.

During the conversation, we cover several topics:

How to break down our biases and find a connection in difficult or complicated circumstances (19:45).

The value of keeping teams fresh with new approaches and partnerships (31:00).

Working with a high degree of uncertainty and the important role of team communication (32:00).

Links from this episode:

VICE TV “Shelter In Place” Episode Guide

Vice Guide To The World

Obama and the Bobby Reid Story

Dawn of a Dictator

Floating Armouries