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Remembering our collective agency as Earth citizens with Jon Alexander
Jon is the author of ‘CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us’ and dedicates himself to sharing about the emergence of a Citizen Future. As a public speaker and a strategist, he supports leaders who understand the scale of the transformation we need and who are willing to play their part, and he plays a key role as a connector between institutions, community groups and social movements.
In this episode, Jon first discusses his career transition from advertising to co-founding the New Citizen Project with Irenie Ekkeshis in 2014, a consultancy aimed at transforming the societal role of individuals from consumers to engaged citizens.
He explores the concept of citizenship as an active practice rather than a static status, emphasizing the importance of collective intelligence and local community actions in addressing major issues like climate change and biodiversity loss.
Jon advocates for participatory democracy and deeper, more inclusive narratives that validate and platform community efforts, such as the wind energy project in Lawrence Weston, Bristol. He provides various international examples such as Taiwan’s COVID response and Norway’s crowdsourced investment strategies, where leaders embrace collective agency.
The discussion also touches on the potential of small yet significant shifts in narrative and policy to mobilize public engagement and trust.
Jon is also a member of the Global Advisor Network of the Apolitical Foundation, where he led extensive work on Democratic Innovation. He is also on the Advisory Council of DemocracyNext, an organisation he helped found as one of the original Strategic Advisors, and on the Leadership Council of the Democracy and Culture Foundation. He is also a Fellow of the Young Foundation, a Visiting Fellow at the University of Manchester, and an Associate at the Cambridge University Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
This episode also includes a series of vox pop with audience members of Earth Rising.
Recorded at the Earth Rising Festival 2025, IMMA, Dublin.
Host: Dr Dave Robbins
Editor & Producer: Louise Romain
Music credits: Resurgence by Simon Folwar; Zenith by Shane Mckenna
YouTube clip: ‘How we got a wind turbine’ by Ambition Lawrence Weston
Intro and outro: Like Flying by Danijel Zambo
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By DCU Institute for Climate and SocietyJon is the author of ‘CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us’ and dedicates himself to sharing about the emergence of a Citizen Future. As a public speaker and a strategist, he supports leaders who understand the scale of the transformation we need and who are willing to play their part, and he plays a key role as a connector between institutions, community groups and social movements.
In this episode, Jon first discusses his career transition from advertising to co-founding the New Citizen Project with Irenie Ekkeshis in 2014, a consultancy aimed at transforming the societal role of individuals from consumers to engaged citizens.
He explores the concept of citizenship as an active practice rather than a static status, emphasizing the importance of collective intelligence and local community actions in addressing major issues like climate change and biodiversity loss.
Jon advocates for participatory democracy and deeper, more inclusive narratives that validate and platform community efforts, such as the wind energy project in Lawrence Weston, Bristol. He provides various international examples such as Taiwan’s COVID response and Norway’s crowdsourced investment strategies, where leaders embrace collective agency.
The discussion also touches on the potential of small yet significant shifts in narrative and policy to mobilize public engagement and trust.
Jon is also a member of the Global Advisor Network of the Apolitical Foundation, where he led extensive work on Democratic Innovation. He is also on the Advisory Council of DemocracyNext, an organisation he helped found as one of the original Strategic Advisors, and on the Leadership Council of the Democracy and Culture Foundation. He is also a Fellow of the Young Foundation, a Visiting Fellow at the University of Manchester, and an Associate at the Cambridge University Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
This episode also includes a series of vox pop with audience members of Earth Rising.
Recorded at the Earth Rising Festival 2025, IMMA, Dublin.
Host: Dr Dave Robbins
Editor & Producer: Louise Romain
Music credits: Resurgence by Simon Folwar; Zenith by Shane Mckenna
YouTube clip: ‘How we got a wind turbine’ by Ambition Lawrence Weston
Intro and outro: Like Flying by Danijel Zambo