On The Edge

In the latest episode of the On The Edge podcast I had a great conversation with Hege Barnes who finally answered the question - what’s the best thing since sliced bread? Hege is Director at Innovation Norway, a government entity for building trade and industries of the future. She is based in New York and building the industries of the future between Norway, USA, Canada, and Brazil. She sits on t...

In this conversation, I connected with Dhiraj Mukherjee who is co-founder of Shazam - the music recognition app that was founded during the end of the dot-com bubble in 2000 and they surfed multiple crises before finally being acquired 18 years later by Apple for a reported $400 million. He is now an active angel investor focused on Tech for Good, and with a particular interest in the climate emer...

In this conversation I spoke with Christian Busch who is author of bestselling book Serendipity Mindset, which is all about the art and science of creating good luck.  Christian is Director the Global Economy Program at New York University. Previously, he co-directed the LSE's Innovation Lab. He also has numerous other affiliations and accolades including with the World Economic Forum and the...

In this episode I connected with Helen Tupper who is the co-founder and CEO of Amazing If, an award-winning career development company with a mission to make work better for everyone.  She is co-author of The Sunday Times No.1 Business Bestseller: The Squiggly Career and host of the UK’s no.1 careers podcast: Squiggly Careers. She also works as a Trustee for Working Families, a UK charity.&nb...

In this episode I learned a lot from speaking with Benjamin de la Pena who has many years of experience in urban development, informal transportation, and agile cities. He was the first-ever Chief of Strategy and Innovation for the Seattle Department of Transportation. He initiated the first-ever city-wide Public Life Study to measure vibrancy and to understand how people use the right-of-way as p...

In this episode I had great conversation with Steve Xoh (pronounced Steve Zore - and also known as Steve Chapman) who is an artist, writer and speaker interested in creativity and the human condition.  He has spoken around the world on the subject of human creativity and culture and has exhibited his artwork alongside the likes of Pablo Picasso and David Shrigley.  He is visiting faculty...

In this episode I had great conversation with Imran Khan who is Head of Public Engagement for the Wellcome Trust who is an independent global charitable foundation, the 4th largest charitable foundation in the world, that supports science to solve the urgent health challenges of mental health, global heating and infectious diseases. Imran leads Wellcome’s efforts in helping the public trust, use,...

In this episode I had a really insightful conversation with Deep Prahalad who is a author, speaker and activist about all things to do with Inclusive Innovation. She is author of Predictable Magic which was one of Fast Companies best design books of the year, as well as being a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, strategy+business, Businessweek. She is on the Advisory Boards of the Gl...

In this episode I enjoyed reconnecting with Rohan Gunatillake who is a digital innovator and entrepreneur in the field of health, wellbeing and mindfulness. He is creator of the best-selling app Buddhify, author of the book Modern Mindfulness, and host of the surprisingly good Meditative Story podcast. In addition he also works with the National Health Service in Scotland making digital technology...

In this episode I really enjoyed speaking with Babusi Nyoni who is a self taught design-strategist and innovator. He works in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and big data innovation with a particular focus on developing solutions for Sub-Saharan African communities. He was born in Zimbabwe and grew up there before moving to South Africa and worked for a decade in the advertising, finance and...

In this episode I enjoyed a wide ranging conversation with Douglas Rushkoff, who is an author, academic and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age, and said to be one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT. He is also host of the Team Human podcast and author of the bestselling book Team Human, and many other books on media, technology, and culture. In this c...

In this episode I was excited to speak with Rutger Bregman, author of the bestselling books Utopia for Realists and Humankind, and occasional provoker of billionaires at Davos. He’s been described as the Dutch wunderkind of new ideas, and writes regularly for the online journal The Correspondent. We talked about how most people are pretty decent, but power corrupts. So what we assume about other p...

In this episode we're pleased to welcome Gemma Milne who is a Science & Technology Journalist covering all things deep tech, including biotech, advanced computing, space, energy and innovation in academia, for titles such as Forbes, The Times, BBC, and Quartz. She is the author of a really interesting and well written book called 'Smoke & Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past I...

In this episode I enjoyed an unhurried conversation with Johnnie Moore, who is a visiting tutor at the Saïd Business School at Oxford University, a partner at CreativeFacilitation.com , an a cofounder of Unhurried.org. I’ve known Johnnie for many years and he’s taught me pretty much everything I know about facilitation, and I have always been struck by how he has helped me, and the people and orga...

In this episode we are pleased to welcome Samantha North, who is a freelance disinformation investigator, who helps organisations to track coordinated and inauthentic online behaviour. She is also doing a PhD at the moment in computational social science at the University of Bath, researching the drivers of political tribalism on social media. She wrote a great blog post that she wrote a few weeks...

In this episode we wanted to explicitly focus on the psychology of uncertainty. Therefore we are very pleased to welcome Noelle Dye. She is co-founder of the strategy and innovation unit at the legendary design firm Continuum, where she helped co-create, amongst many other products and services, the Swiffer for Proctor and Gamble which is now become a half-billion dollar brand in fifteen countries...

In this episode we are delighted to speak with Dave Snowdon, who is founder and chief scientific officer of Cognitive Edge, and also creator of the Cynefin decision making framework, which he created when he worked for IBM. Cynefin is a Welsh word for habitat. If you are not familiar with the framework yet I would encourage you to search for it online or take a look a...

In this episode we are pleased to welcome back Valdis Krebs, who first appeared on episode 3, and is an renowned expert on social network analysis, and founder and chief scientist of the company OrgNet. In the previous episode you can hear us discuss the many of the positive benefits of contagion in networks, such as through creating new knowledge and fostering innovation. However in this episode...

In this episode we are pleased to welcome Joe Scarboro whose passions lie in building businesses, innovation, technology and mental health. After starting out as an accountant, he forged a place in the London tech community, starting a few companies and working at the intersection of startups and large companies, which is the main topic of our discussion in this episode. I first got to know Joe as...

In this first episode of 2020 we are very pleased to welcome Shelley Kuipers who is an activist in business, fashion, feminism and finance. In this episode we focussed upon three things that she is activating right now. Firstly she is co-founder of The51 investment fund focussed on female investors and entrepreneurs. Secondly she has co-created a sustainable clothing label called Harris Kuipers. L...

In this final episode of 2019 it feels appropriate to welcome Rob Poynton who has had a longstanding interest in improvisation and creativity. He is also the author of several books including most recently the bestselling Do Pause, all about the importance and necessity of pausing, which seems particularly relevant at this time of year and given some of the complexity and turbulence of recent mont...

In this episode we are really pleased to welcome Gina Lucarelli, who heads up the Accelerator Labs Network for the United Nations which launched recently in 60 countries around the world. Gina is a native New Yorker and has lived and worked all around the world for the last 15 years working with and wrangling colleagues at United Nations to collaborate on sustainable development. She describes her...

In this episode we are delighted to welcome designer and uber-connector, Cassie Robinson, who is connected to so many interesting people, programmes and organisations, that it’s almost impossible to list them all. Starting out her career as a fashion designer, Cassie is now the Head of Digital Grant Making at the National Lottery Community Fund in the UK, as well as the founder of the Point People...

In this episode we welcome back James Burke for the second half of the conversation we had back in May in a busy cafe in West London. The first half of the conversation was first shared in episode 1 of the On The Edge podcast, and so if you haven’t already heard that episode, then we would really recommend that you listen to that first before listening to this next instalment. The previous episode...

In this episode we are delighted to welcome the entrepreneur and designer Tessy Britton. Two years ago she founded and is now CEO of the Participatory Cities Foundation, which is a 5 year research and development programme that has raised very significant funding to boost cohesion, health, equality, happiness, safety, sustainability and innovation, in cities through peer-to-peer citizen co-creatio...