We know that what matters most for our health is the food we eat, the air we breathe, the places we work and the homes we live in. But even though we know a lot about what causes ill health, we know far too little about how to prevent those factors from making us ill.   In this episode, host Tiernan Douieb talks to Nesta’s Christina Cornwell about tipping the health research balance away from the biomedical: what happens when you look for solutions to the causes of illhealth - like pollution and inequality?   We hear from the Ella Roberta Family Foundation founder, Rosamund Adoo Kissi-Debrah, about her campaign for better air quality after her young daughter suffered from a fatal asthma attack.  Finally, Lita Wallace of The Winch, joins Tiernan and Christina to talk about why youth violence is a public health issue and how research led by young people in North London is trying to find solutions.   Proposal for The Nightingale Centre  The Ella Roberta Family Foundation The Winch’s Take Back the Power and podcast  Get in touch with the Future Curious team: [email protected]    Or on Twitter @Nesta_UK, #futurecurious   Future Curious is presented by Tiernan Douieb and produced and published by Nesta’s communication team. This episode was recorded at and edited by Wardour Studios. Original music by Ged Flood.

From the comfort of your very own podcast stream, join us at London’s Barbican for an evening of talks, installations and an interactive performance about the future of storytelling…    Stories of the past have been carved, painted and printed. Today, they are whispered through earbuds, watched through screens and available to download.    In this episode, host Tiernan Douieb talks to writer and critic Olivia Laing, near-future author Stephen Oram and writer and narrative designer Chella Ramanan.    We will also explore how stories might be told in the future through installations from the Royal College of Art, and immersing ourselves in an animal love story with performance artist David Finnigan. Find out about Nesta’s new Alternarratives Prize -  a £15,000 prize for writers to explore innovation in short-form storytelling.    And don’t forget to listen out for your discount code for Nesta’s FutureFest on 20 March 2020.   Alternarratives Prize:  https://www.nesta.org.uk/project/alternarratives/ FutureFest 2020: https://www.futurefest.org/futurefest-2020   Get in touch with the Future Curious team: [email protected]    Or on twitter @Nesta_UK, #futurecurious   Future Curious is presented by Tiernan Douieb and produced and published by Nesta’s communication team. This episode was recorded on location by Sonia Foday and edited at Wardour Studios. Original music by Ged Flood.

Engineer and designer Nicola Millar joins AI specialist Simi Awokoya to discuss inclusivity and diversity with host Tiernan Douieb and Nesta’s Madeleine Gabriel.    We listen in on a conversation about Nicola’s quest to design a menopause ‘pebble’ with focus-group member, Emily. They meet to talk about how an honest conversation with women heading into the menopause led to the product Emily trials for Nicola.   Nesta’s Alex Glennie gives a glimpse into inclusive innovation in Vietnam with her report on disability, from Hanoi.    With special thanks to NICA and The Voice    Links featured in this episode Nesta’s 12 women shaping AI report Inclusive innovation  Witty Careers and the next Career Clinic is on 21 November in Camden, London Read more about menopause tech, The Pebble   Get in touch with Future Curious: [email protected]    Or on Twitter @Nesta_UK, #futurecurious   Future Curious is presented by Tiernan Douieb and produced and published by Nesta’s communication team. This episode was recorded and edited at Wardour Studios. Original music by Ged Flood.

We’ll explore the tools and techniques to get people involved in the shape of things to come.   Host Tiernan Douieb brings together Kazakhstan-based futurologist John Sweeney with Nesta’s Kathy Peach and Laurie Smith. They talk about why we should all participate in designing our future - and how to go about it. We also hear from Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones from Newcastle University. Mark reflects on the Newcastle City Futures project and the ways in which it engaged the wider community to steer the course of the city.   Report: Our Futures: By the people, for the people Newcastle City Futures   Nesta’s new ‘Participatory Futures’ game - coming early 2020! Check back in the New Year.   Future Curious is presented by Tiernan Douieb and produced and published by Nesta’s communication team. Recorded by Sonia Foday and edited at Wardour Studios. Original music by Ged Flood.   Get in touch with Future Curious: [email protected]    Or via Twitter @Nesta_UK / #futurecurious

As well as looking after Nesta for the last nine years, Geoff has had an eclectic career, involving research, policy-making and shaping the way the UK ‘does’ social innovation.   In this episode, Geoff Mulgan and Tiernan Douieb discuss:   The theory of ‘The Bees and the Trees’. Why the best way to create change is to be the opposite of Concorde. Simple steps to personal happiness.   Geoff also reflects on some of the Nesta projects that he has overseen during his time as Chief Executive. If you want to learn more about Geoff’s work, he has released a new book. It’s called Social Innovation - How Societies Find the Power to Change and it’s published by Policy Press.   Future Curious is presented by Tiernan Douieb and produced and published by Nesta’s communication team. Recorded by Sonia Foday and edited at Wardour Studios. Original music by Ged Flood.   Get in touch with Future Curious: [email protected]    Or on Twitter @Nesta_UK

On 16 October, we recorded this episode to look at predictions and forecasts about the way Brexit events might unfold - ahead of the original 31 October withdrawal deadline.   So who got it right? Which method gazed accurately into the future?    Using Brexit as a case study, this episode discusses different prediction and forecast methods - polling, betting, the wisdom of the crowds and academic research.   Host Tiernan Douieb is joined by an expert line-up of YouGov’s Chris Curtis, University of London’s Professor Chris Hanretty and Nesta’s Aleks Berditchevskaia. They weigh up experimental techniques, explore the merits of traditional prediction methods and discuss how we can predict and forecast in turbulent times.  We also hear from Sarbjit Bakhshi at Smarkets. He gives a snapshot into how betting and betting exchange activity can show the ebbs and flows of public opinion.   Useful links featured in this episode: goodjudgment.com/nesta    Get in touch with Future Curious: [email protected]   Or via twitter @Nesta_UK / #futurecurious   Future Curious is presented by Tiernan Douieb and produced and published by Nesta’s communication team. Recorded and edited at Wardour Studios. Original music by Ged Flood.  

What are the applications or the ramifications of new tiny mechanical bees? And how will society adjust?   This episode is about the technologies that we may well see in the 2020s, such as swarm robotics. We look at the uses but also the responsibilities that need to accompany such technological and scientific shifts.    Dr Edmund Hunt talks to Nesta’s Bea Karol Burks about his work in swarm robotics. Science and tech writer, speaker and thinker Sumit Paul-Choudhury joins Bea and presenter Tiernan Douieb to discuss tomorrow’s innovations and the consequences and considerations they may hold for society.   From swarms of robots to swarms of cells, you will also hear a snippet from broadcaster and writer Philip Ball talking about turning his own skin cells into neurons and how they organised themselves in to ‘mini brains’.   Useful links featured in this episode:   The Tipping Point Prize Dr Edmund Hunt’s ‘robot swarm’ essay Bristol Robotics Laboratory  Philip Ball talking about How to Grow a Human as part of Nesta’s ‘Talks To…’ series   Get in touch with Future Curious  by email at [email protected]    Or via twitter @Nesta_UK / #futurecurious   Future Curious is presented by Tiernan Douieb and produced and published by Nesta’s communication team. Sound by Sonia Foday. Edited by Wardour Studios. Original music by Ged Flood

Kathy Peach, Head of CCID, Nesta

David Baltaxe, Chief Intelligence Officer, Unanimous AI

Yvonne McDermott-Rees, Professor of Law, Swansea University

Daisy Tam, Assistant Professor, Hong Kong Baptist University

Vito Trianni, Researcher, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of the Italian National Research Council (ISTC-CNR)

The people behind four of the Nesta funded collective intelligence experiments share their work to date, what they have learned about getting the design right, what new tools like machine learning enable them to do differently, and how their insights and methods can be applied more widely.

Beth Noveck, Director of GovLab

Haris Biskos, Head of synAthina platform, City of Athens

Georgia Gould, Leader of Camden Council

Michael Donaldson, CTO and CIO, Barcelona City Council

Cities are facing a number of problems, such as lack of trust between governments and society, hate crime, corruption, or economic and social inequality. Beth Noveck, Haris Biskos, Georgia Gould, and Michael Donaldson discuss how they have managed to bridge those gaps between local authorities and civil society, bring communities together, and change people’s thinking about democracy by tapping into the knowledge of their citizens. They reveal the secrets to successful crowd and institution collaboration, and explain how involving citizens in different ways, adapting collective intelligence solutions to different problems and opening up that has enabled them to successfully tackle some of the most urgent urban challenges.

Carly Kind, Director, Ada Lovelace Institute

Aleks Berditchevskaia, Senior Researcher, CCID, Nesta

Karina Vold Postdoctoral Research Associate, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge

Julien Cornebise, Honorary Associate Professor, University College London

Marco Marchesi, CTO, Happy Finish

Our panelists discuss some of the challenges and opportunities around combining AI and human intelligence, share concrete examples, and uncover nascent opportunities in that field. They explore questions like what AI that extends human capabilities beyond what is possible today looks like, what effective AI use in CI context means, and how AI is engineering us, while we are engineering AI. Drawing on their expertise as engineers, philosophers, researchers, and creatives, they talk about the need for the discourse to move away from tech-first, and how AI offers possibilities to not just improve efficiency, but also to discover new patterns and help people improve human understanding.