Director of the Japan Society Innovators Network, Betty Borden is a rural innovator sparking global change. She coordinates projects that connect Japanese and American mavericks to exchange solutions on some shared grand challenges, recently in the area of rural economic and community revitalization.

Betty discovered Dr. Connie and the Rural Futures Institute through a Google search inquiring into the most future-focused, strategic solutions for rural thriving. In this conversation they dig into more than a year of work that has brought them together across the world and includes creative solutions around recruitment and retention of residents, sparking female entrepreneurship, rethinking the rural-urban opportunities of agriculture and food production and, of course, the evolution of leadership.