Leading with Social Impact

Allan Savory, a naturalist and wildlife expert says that fossil fuel, carbon, coal and gas are by no means the only thing that is causing climate change. Desertification is another immediate threat that we are facing where almost two thirds of the land in this world is turning to desert. It took some time for scientists, ecologists and experts to understand that there is only one thing that we can do to solve this issue and that is mimic nature. Also, agriculture and land management are multi-dimensional with numerous challenges both in the rural and urban context. So what can we do and what are the tools/methods available to enable the age of regeneration?

Join me in the conversation with Durukan Dudu, co-founder of Anatolian Grasslands where he works with enabling holistic farmers to become actor in the social economical and ecological transformation process. They are transforming agriculture to make it the most powerful and fertile tool of combating and adaptation to climate change, soil creation and ecosystem repair. 

Anatolian Grasslands - https://www.anadolumera.com

Turkey’s first food ecosystem/brand with regenerative and grass-fed meat/animal-based food products, Safi Mera - https://www.anadolumera.com/safimera

One of the biggest challenges that the world currently faces is access to clean water and safe sanitation. Globally 2.6 billion people lack safe toilet access and poor sanitation causes 80% of all infectious disease, 4% of deaths globally and takes life of one child every 20 seconds. At least 20% of girls drop out of school due to lack of safe, private toilets and this in turn contributes to increased rates of early marriage, sexual violence and teen childbearing. But it is to be noted that the incurred cost for developing a proper sanitation infrastructure and its maintenance is very high. 

Join me in the conversation with Dr. Diana Yousef, founder of change-WATER Labs where she shares her story of becoming a female entrepreneur and talks about their solution in order to develop a low cost, compact, waterless toilet for non-sewered households and communities. 

 Change:WATER Labs - http://www.change-water.com

Welcome to Season 2 of "Leading with Social Impact" Podcast. First of all I would like to thank all of you for your constant support and feedback throughout Season 1 where we got inspired by listening to social impact leaders on a diverse range of topics such as Sustainable clothing, circular economy, wildlife conservation, carbon emissions and many more. .

2020 has been a challenging year for all of us but one good thing that turned out from this is that we all have become much more aware of the global challenges and impact of climate change. So this season I again aim to connect you with inspirational social impact leaders who work with innovative solutions for global challenges to reach UN Sustainability Development Goals. In addition to the regular episodes, I am excited to tell you that this season I have also collaborated with Ashoka Nordic to release a series of special episodes.

Ashoka Nordic celebrates 10 years of successfully working with systems change, leading social entrepreneurs & young changemakers as well as inspiring initiatives across the Nordics. These special episodes will share a few of these changemakers' stories, Ashoka Nordic initiatives and solutions to the global challenges.

It is estimated that our sea food consumption will grow more than 30% in the next 10 years. With the increase in demand for the last few years, fish farms are collapsing and overfishing is threatening the marine ecosystem. Moreover, we have higher levels of toxins, antibiotics, mercury and microplastics in our seafood than ever before. But at the same time seafood contains high nutritional value and has been considered as a healthy option for long time. So is there a way to tackle this challenge and meet the needs? For the past few years we have observed that plant based alternatives have challenged the conventional food system and consumers are becoming much more aware.

Listen to my conversation with Emil Wasteson, co-founder of Hooked who envisions to remove animals entirely from the seafood industry and give healthier plant based seafood alternatives to the people. 

Hooked - https://www.hookedfoods.com

In today's digital era, we spend more time in front of a screen than meeting people in person. Same thing applies for children who would have had 3500 hours of screen time even before they join the school which is equivalent to 3 years of contact with a teacher. However, the teachers face challenges to teach these digitally native children about topics such as diversity, health and wellbeing, SDG etc. which is not very strongly built in the current curriculum in most countries. Due to pandemic there has been less contact with people in general which has made it even more difficult for children to have access to quality education. Regardless of all these challenges, we are fortunate that today's technologies enable us to provide these crucial skills and values to young children in an engaging way. 

 Listen to my conversation with Paulina Tervo, Co-CEO of Lyfta where with the help of immersive learning technology, they enable young children to sit on the driver's seat and explore the world on their own. 

Lyfta - www.lyfta.com

Currently in the society there are n number of challenges such as mental health, health, societal segregation, sustainability, climate change etc. Even though Nordic countries are known for innovation, there is still a lot that needs to be done especially in terms of policies, regulations and cross sector collaboration. Swedish government has invested around 150million SEK to support social entrepreneurs and help them grow. Nowadays the complexity of challenges require social entrepreneurs to open up to the possibility of collaborating with different stakeholders. Ashoka.org envisions a world in which everyone is a changemaker : a world where all citizens are powerful and contribute to change in positive ways.

Listen to my conversation with Emma Lindgren, Director of Ashoka Nordic where we talk about how Ashoka Nordic supports social entrepreneurs to take a systems thinking approach to solve the complex societal problems. 

Ashoka Nordic - www.ashokanordic.org

Have you ever wondered that there must be some solution somewhere to a particular problem but unable to find it? Creating social impact is not just about building your own innovative solutions but rather working smartly and learn from existing solutions. Around the world there are multitude of innovative solutions to the global challenges but restricted to a region due to constraints like language or access to global platform. Wouldn't it be amazing if we can get clear action points to implement a proven solution for a problem that we have identified in our country. Right?

Listen to Meg Pagani, founder of Impacton.org talk exactly about that on how we can work effectively by collaborating with impact projects internationally and implement proven innovative solutions tailored to our requirements.

Impacton - https://impacton.org
Impacton global survey - http://globalsurvey.impacton.org/ 

A million programme in Sweden was an ambitious project to build a million housings during the 10 year period in 1960's. This was an initiative to cater for the large urbanization trend at that time but unfortunately these areas now struggle with high unemployment, health issues and demographic change. Additionally, when we talk about the young children in these areas, they face a lot of difficulties especially in terms of having equal opportunities and role models to inspire them . The pandemic has had an impact on everyone and somehow has exemplified these challenges for the young children. 

 Listen to my conversation with Madeleine Opira, founder of A Million Minds, who aims to unleash the potential of young children in Sweden and work with equality from a bottom up perspective.  

A Million Minds - www.amillionminds.se

By now most people understand that the Food system that we have currently is killing the planet slowly but efficiently. The industrial food system that we actually deployed during the Green Revolution in 1960's to solve the problem of mass starvation is coming back and stabbing us in the back.  Somehow the existing system has become responsible for major health problems on the planet. We need to see the food system in its entirety, starting from farmers growing the crops to the food waste.  Using technology and innovation in the food system is clearly the solution to create a healthy and sustainable life. 

Listen to my conversation with Johan Jorgensen, founder of Sweden Foodtech where we talk about importance of food system and use of technology with a focus on biodiversity to create a next gen food system. 

Sweden Foodtech - https://www.swedenfoodtech.com 

Climate change is real and we will never reach our global target if we continue to go about business as usual. Clearly industrial revolution has given us lot of things but with that it has also given pollution and climate change. Humans have engaged in large scale transformation of natural systems for millennia. Thousands of years of forest clearance added hundreds of billions of tones of carbon in the atmosphere. The average human contributes about 5 tonnes of CO2 every year out of which a quarter will remain in atmosphere for well over a millennium. But how can we contribute in mitigating climate change and become climate positive?

Join me in the conversation with Oliver Bolton, founder and CEO of Earthly where their mission is to mitigate climate change by focusing on nature based solutions to create a Natural Revolution. 

Earthly - www.earthly.org