I Am Interchange

We often find ourselves looking to leaders and governments to direct solutions for our increasingly complex problems, but what better place to look than at a problem’s source. As Mexico City struggles under the yoke of a burgeoning population and ever-dwindling resources, particularly water, it may find itself at the forefront of innovation, of those sorts of grassroots efforts that eventually dictate structural change. In this case, residents of the city have long utilized creative strategies for water harvest, capture, reuse, and urban gardening, thereby reducing their reliance on government and supply chains. These everyday people simply looked at a problem and solved it, to the best of their ability, with what they had. They made resources last. And, in so doing, they fed into their own autonomy. They became proactivists in their lives, livelihoods, and the future of their beloved city. 

In this podcast, Tate Chamberlin hosts Enrique Lomnitz, and Gabriela Vargas Romero as they reflect on the city’s resilient population, innovative regenerative solutions, and hope, in all its vibrant colors. 

As young Tanzanians, in particular, struggle to define their way in the world, questions arise about the true nature of opportunity, and what to do when there is a lack. Does the mere existence of options suffice? Amidst political and social landscapes intent on the misleading adage to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” it seems the individual is to blame for failing to carpe their diem. But the process of how we become what we become — the choices and experiences that lead us from point a to z, beginning to end — is far more complicated than adages can convey. Opportunity resides in place as much as presence.

Here, at the African Regenerative Futures Summit in Zanzibar, Tanzania,  Tate Chamberlin hosts Veronica Likunama, Dr. Stephanie Ndung’u, and Victor Muhagachi  as they examine the nature of opportunity in a tiny country on the cusp of technological, social, and political evolution.

With its pristine beaches, Stone Town’s historic charm, and the vibrancy of the Masai people, Zanzibar is an island as alluring as it is elusive. It is here, after all, in this remote reach of the world so beautifully enveloped in nature that some of the greatest technological and digital advances aren’t just explored, they’re actualized. As compelling as it is promising, Zanzibar has found itself squarely on the threshold of open-source internet, the impact and implications of the teetering toddler that is AI, and digital sovereignty — data ownership and personal commodification on one’s own terms — emerging technologies that offer a glimpse of a fast-approaching future.

In this collaborative series between HATCH and Hub Culture’s The Chronicle Discussions, I Am Interchange founder Tate Chamberlin and groundbreaking digital innovators Hub Culture founding director Stan Stalnaker, machine learning engineer and Neurotech founder Kalebu Gwalugano, and ThreeFold founder and CEO Kristof De Spiegeleer explore the future of digital communities, Web 3, Machine Intelligence (MI), and all that humanity holds in the balance. 

In the fight to save humanity—to literally reweave and rework the underpinnings of our social and structural fabric—how far is too far? Many speak of hope, of community coming together and manifesting viable, regenerative solution after solution, emboldening innovators to rise up from the ashes of failed systems, to actualize the brilliant phoenix of tomorrow after the long dark night of the last several decades’ descent into mindless consumerism and industrialized madness. But what if it’s all just more of the same—pipe dreams and pansies—baby steps limping humanity and all else ever so slowly to a sad, avoidable end. With one shot, a moonshot no less, in the balance, what if it’s not enough? What if it’s one step forward and two steps back, still, and until there are no more steps to be had?

Our host, Tate Chamberlin continues passage down the Nile with esteemed guests—social activists and fellow HATCHers Stephen Brooks, Melissa Jun Rowley, and Elias Cattan—we discuss what it means to change the world.

Step into the world of active listening and environmental conservation as we take you on a journey through the rainforest, where cell phones connected to solar panels are used to detect the sound of chainsaws and thwart illegal logging. Join us as we explore the remarkable intersection of technology and nature, and contemplate the exciting future of headphones and their role in shaping our auditory experiences.

Hub Culture presents: The Chronicle Discussions: The Power of Listening with Topher White, Founder and Executive Chair of Rainforest Connection (RFCx), and Tim Degraye, Founder of Unity Headphones.

Stan Stalnaker and Tate Chamberlin host live from the Future Mobility Hub during COP28 in Dubai. Presented by Hub Culture, in sync with Hatch A Better World.

Deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and scattered sparsely across the Colombian and Peruvian borders, reside the Indigenous people of the Kichwa Nation. With more than 400 organized communities comprised of ayllus — groups of families — the Kichwa clans currently retain the rights to over 1,115,000 hard-won hectares in and around the rainforest. And they’re mere minor landowners.

After working and communing with Kichwa activist Leo Cerda for several days in his home village, host Tate Chamberlin and Cerda ventured back out of the verdant depths to meet with esteemed Amazon Watch founder and fellow activist Atossa Soltani at her hotel in the urban center of Quito to discuss the past, present, and future of the Amazon—the thrumming, thumping heart of the planet.

What does it mean to heal? Emotionally and mentally, as we begin to peel back the protective layers of denial, isolation, internalization, projection—like so many filters obscuring what is, what has happened, what lies beneath—we are left with something alien—raw, fragile, and often unconscionably unfamiliar. The process is painful. And physically? When a burn brings blisters, a bone breaks, cells become cancerous, from where does the healing come? What happens inside that cast? Under that bandage? How do we harness the body’s ability to heal? Direct it where we want it to go? Supercharge it?

Here, I sit down with acclaimed stem cell researcher and scientist Christian Drapaeu and Philip Robinson, a licensed clinical social worker pioneering collaborative mental health care systems for all, to explore the potentialities and potholes inherent to healing, in all its forms and facets.

Many would be surprised to realize that women only secured the right to vote in this country a little over a century ago, and that, perhaps tellingly, they began attending institutions of higher learning in remarkable numbers at about the same time. The female presence in business is further still in its infancy. Though women have outnumbered men in colleges and universities across the U.S. since the mid-90s, they remain an underrepresented minority in the workplace, particularly in positions and industries synonymous with success. But why? Is the problem merely timing? Is it men? Are the patriarchal systems and structures that have defined this nation simply intent on retaining that power, and intelligent in their methods of ensuring it? Or is it more complicated than that? 

Here, on this journey through Egypt — guided by the wisdom and waters of the Nile — host Tate Chamberlin brings fellow HATCHers Meredith Marder, Catherine Carlton, and Kimberly Bryant together to share the perspectives and passions that have shaped their respective work as women in business, and their intentions for the generations of trailblazers that will follow in their footsteps.

What gives rise to joy? To hope? What of meaning? And reconciliation? Many might espouse some presumed inherent worthiness of work—a legacy of things getting done—in defining a life well lived. Others might speak of the importance of family, of intimate connection, of love as all you need. In this, context is important. Not only the context of the here and now, but that of the before—what preceded the now that has shaped both present and future perspectives. Entrepreneur, waste reduction advocate, and environmentalist Pashon Murray’s perspective is defined by her personal experiences growing up in Texas; by the roots of her race, which calls back, ironically, to the cradle of humanity through which she now floats, one from which her people were ripped, as if from a mother’s bosom, so many generations ago; by her family’s history in Mississippi, in Louisiana, in the slaveholding South. Fast friend Sara Andrews, regenerative agriculture aficionado and founder of Bumbleroot Foods, is likewise shaped both by a rural Montana farm steeped in tragedy and grounded appreciation for the earth, and an unfortunate legacy of slave ownership in that selfsame Louisiana county. And they are both firmly entrenched in the feminine, in the sensitive undercurrent and vital emotional presence that offers power, and pain. Here, while aboard a boat on their last day on the Nile, host Tate Chamberlin and fellow HATCHers Pashon Murray and Sara Andrews share of their experiences in the realm of regeneration, both without and within, whilst sipping from the deep dark dregs of generational trauma. And healing.