Seeds

Anna Judge shares with us in this episode about founding Our Little Village and her experience creating that charity. The charity came from her experience with child birth and the challenges she faced as a mother. With the support of her family and guidance of a doctor, she made it through the challenges but was the experience inspired to start Our Little Village, the name for which is inspired fr...

Yoseph is one of the co-founders of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship and was the first CEO as well.  In this interview we talk about his childhood in Ethiopia, moving around Africa as a young person, studying in the United States and how he ended up in New Zealand. We also talk about the origins of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship and the programme which brings into New Zealand entrepreneurs and investo...

Jezza founded Makingtrax to make a difference and in this short excerpt we hear from him about some of his journey - if you don't go away feeling inspired by this then I will be very surprised!   Check him out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/makingtrax.co.nz/   Website: https://www.makingtrax.co.nz/   Email: Jezza Williams  

In this interview we hear from Adrian Palmer about his life and growing up, with his high school friends forming the band Supra which became ZED, what it was like to top charts and travel the World, returning to New Zealand and the origins of the Addington Coffee Coop.  We also discuss Common Good Coffee which has been developed with Kind Cafe and Crave Cafe in Auckland.  We also discuss how they...

Some interviews go deeper than others and this is one of those - Elle Archer has had a very interesting life and she shares about her early years, being adopted, the role her parents played in her life, leaving school at age 14, lifelong learning and doing, making access to education accessible and te ao Māori. We also talk about Ako Ōtautahi Learning City Christchurch festival.  I really enjoyed...

Rick has had a truly fascinating life, helping the Chatham Island Black Robins survive through 9 summers of work there, having a childhood lived in a variety of countries, working on creating a permaculture farm and co-founding Xtreme Zero Waste.  We talk about all that and a lot more in this discussion - shout out to Craig Fisher for connecting us.  If you enjoy this check out more at www.theseed...

Charlie has had a fascinating life as a fashion photographer, running a contemporary art gallery in New York and travelling the world - what she saw on those trips led to her setting up Hello Future to work with adolescent refugees.  But we start the conversation learning about Charlie's early years in Taiwan and what it was like to be sent aged 11 to the United States without being able to speak...

To celebrate the 250th episode of seeds podcast this is a short talk I gave at the High School that I went to for about 60 Year 13 students reflecting on 15 things that I wish I had known when I was their age.  Hope you enjoy this as it is applicable to me today still.  For more information and interviews check out www.theseeds.nz What I wish someone had told me when I was 17 sitting in your seat...

Mark Longbottom has had a career working with for purpose organisations in the UK and New Zealand.  In this interview we find out about his passion for England from a very young age, his life there working in the NFP sector and then the decision to move back to New Zealand.  We also have a great discussion about starting a podcast as he set up his last year.  Check out the links to that as well -...

Mark Bregman has had decades of experience as an innovator, worked in start-ups and venture capital investing and I interviewed him on Intellectual Capital. This was a live interview held as part of an Edmund Hillary Fellowship 'Huddle' event this week.  Big thanks to those who put the event on from EHF and the Huddles crew. The real value in a business is most often in its intellectual capital -...

Joe has just finished co-writing "Silver Linings" with David Downs about the impact of Covid on businesses and the pivots they went through as a result.  In this interview we find out about that but also dive deep into his background and hear about his childhood in England, moving to New Zealand at a young age, the work he was involved in before co-founding Nanogirl Labs and how they coped with Co...

This is a short excerpt of my conversation with Joe Davis who is a co-founder and the CEO of Nanogirl Labs.  In it he talks about the impact of Covid on Nanogirl Labs as well as the book that has resulted called "Silver Linings".  We also talk about what it is that we can learn from the experience and ask whether we go back to "normal" or we actually change the way we act in the future - "what is...

Paul has had an interesting life including a childhood in Ilam Homestead, made famous by the movie "Heavenly Creatures" and in this episode we talk about his background, his time overseas, business in the Himalayas and what he does today.  I was curious to understand from him what it is that makes a good interview and how recruiting works as he is involved in that at Sunstone.  If you enjoy this c...

Faumuina Felolini Maria Tafunai's life and journey has been fascinating - in this interview we find out about what it is like to grow up with two cultures, being born in New Zealand but with strong connections back to Samoa.  In particular we focus in on Wayfinding - this originates from "a geneology of knowledge passed down through Pacific star navigators and ocean voyagers".  She wants to use Pa...

A short excerpt of the interview with Faumuina Felolini Maria Tafunai where we talked about the ocean and long voyages and what she has learned from spending time learning from nature.   About what she does: https://www.flyinggeesepro.nz/ YouTube video of her talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y58Xf474NaQ&feature=youtu.be Wayfinding article: https://www.ehf.org/blog/swe2a87gjavk3i0brqd2buom9z1h...

Jan has had an interesting life as a citizen of the world and a co-founder of CarbonClick.  In this interview we learn about his childhood in Norway and travels since then and how he ended up - by a serendipitous encounter - living in New Zealand.  We also talk about the work of CarbonClick as well as the Edmund Hillary Fellowship which Jan is part of.  I really enjoyed this conversation and if yo...

Sacha McMeeking spoke at the 2020 Hillary Laureate Dinner to give the closing remarks.  She somehow managed to weave together so many unique threads that touched on colonisation, climate change, Te Ao Māori and some real challenges about who we are taking along with us and will lead in the future.  Sacha is Head of School of Aotahi: Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Canterbury.  Th...

Levi shares some of his life journey so far as a young entrepreneur who has been involved in a few start-ups already and recently co-founded Partly.  We talk about that venture which builds software solutions to solve difficult problems in the automotive parts industry.  As well as rapid growth and what he's learned raising $1.7 million in funding we also learn about his childhood and startups at...

In this very short interview we chat with Stephen Penny who was on the show pre-Covid.  He told his life story then and in this episode we catch up on the topic of looking after ourselves and our mental health - how can we do better at checking up on those around us?  LinkedIn Post we discuss: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/honorisstephenpenny_supportingeachother-askforhelp-activity-67343831454388...

I interview a lot of people but seldom get the mic turned the other way round, so this wide ranging chat with Ian Harvey from Collective Intelligence for his podcast " Stuff that Matters Now " was a lot of fun.  Harv was a guest on Seeds in 2019 and came to a session I did on how to create a podcast - so he has the same gear as me!  It was fun to appear on his show for his episode 34 and I encoura...

Michael went on many expeditions with Sir Edmund Hillary and was a friend of his for 50 years and has written an in-depth biography of his life.  In this interview we find out about how they first met and what going on several expeditions with him all around the world was like.  We also learn about his memories of Sir Ed and the key points in his life and how they influenced him and what his chara...

Dr Angela Lim is one of the co-founders of Clearhead, and in this interview we find out about her childhood and life growing up in Malaysia and studying in Singapore before she moved to New Zealand.  We talk about identity, how she ended up studying medicine and mental health in New Zealand - why do we have such poor rates?  We also discuss how Clearhead works and what it is aimed at - an online p...

Mitchell shares his life journey in this episode with a focus on autonomous vehicles.  As the founder of Autonomous Consulting and the co-author with me of a paper on driverless cars I think you'll find this conversation interesting.  We start talking about the lunar landing of the 1960s, pursuing a career in the Law, moving to New Zealand and how he got into autonomous vehicles.  If you enjoy thi...

Remember Captain Planet?  This cartoon celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.  This is an audio version of an article I wrote for The Spinoff.  The full text is here https://thespinoff.co.nz/tv/18-11-2020/remembering-captain-planet-30-years-on/ If you enjoy this then consider sharing with someone else who might remember the show? For more content visit www.theseeds.nz   

Jeanette founded Power Pause to help raise awareness about Menopause.   For episode 233 we find out about her life growing up in Liverpool, transformative OE experiences, her career in Human Resources and what it was like for her going through Menopause - and why she then founded Power Pause. Website with resources: https://powerpause.co.nz/ Jeanette comments: "My aim is to provide lots of resourc...