The Innovator's Journey

What is the future of human work, in the coming age of Artificial intelligence? Over the past two years, we've spoken with innovators around the world whose work has impacted medicine, engineering, education, the law and more. In each case we've talked about the future of work in their particular profession, and asked: what's uniquely human, that AI will never replace? In this special...

You’re listening to an AI generated deep dive into The Innovator’s Journey podcast. The two characters you’ll hear playing fast and loose with our podcast guests were generated by Google’s experimental research assistant called Notebook LM.   See what you think. If you’d like to hear to the real humans and the full stories, visit tijourney.com, or search for The Innovator’s Journey wherever you ge...

Bill Drayton is one of the world's greatest innovators for the public good. His life has, directly or indirectly, touched millions of people around the world. Drayton traces his values and motivation to his family's roots in the Puritans and Quakers of New England, the rebel confidence especially of women including his mother, and the influence of some of the C20th Century's most significant figur...

What does it take to build a global network of millions of people taking action around a cause you care about? The story of Koen Timmers reveals some of the practical ways. In this case the cause is climate change, the network is teachers and students, and the innovation includes a clever app for building community and measuring impact. Koen tells how he gradually evolved this work from his humble...

Climate scientist Shaun Fitzgerald OBE is director of the Centre for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge (UK), and a former director of the Royal Institution. As an innovator, Dr Fitzgerald founded and led a company 'Breathing Buildings Ltd', pioneering new ways to ventilate buildings that can halve energy bills. More recently, responding to worsening climate forecasts and the fear of ti...

This episode follows the remarkable journey of Admir Masic, a refugee turned influential chemist and materials scientist at MIT. You'll discover how he and his colleagues are taking an unusual unique approach to sustainability that is transforming one of the construction industry's most notorious materials - concrete - into one that could revolutionise renewable energy storage around the world. Fr...

Cognitive scientist Maureen Dunne explains how the emergence of the term 'neurodiversity' has led to a postitive, strengths based approach that can give organisations a competitive edge. She describes how a move away from a purely medical model of conditions like autism and ADHD widens the focus beyond disability, and how the idea of 'universal design' enables everyone to thrive in schools and wor...

Abiel Ma is CEO of Vuala, a start-up pioneering decentralised food waste reprocessing. He and his company may be relatively young, but like all good innovations they stand on the shoulders of others. What makes this innovation story unusual is that the shoulders in question are those of his father who carried out decades of research and development in environmental science and mechanical engineeri...

Anup Surendranath is professor of law at National Law University in Delhi.  He is also Executive Director of Project 39a, an initiative whose sustained representation of prisoners sentenced to death in the Supreme Court of India has led to significant changes and improvements in the law. What motivates someone to take up the cause of death row prisoners? His story gives us some insight into his mo...

As a software engineer with seven patents, Ross Smith is a proven innovator. He is well equipped to help Microsoft apply AI creatively and responsibly today, which is the primary focus of the innovation featured in this episode. However, it is as a manager of software teams that I find Ross's innovative spirit most intriguing. Where did he get his ideas on management? What leads him to continually...

Do you ever get frustrated at work because everything keeps changing? Your boss is being demanding. Your client changes their mind (again). Interest rates go up. There's a war on the other side of the planet. Someone sneezed and you caught it. Stuff happens. Lyssa Adkins got frustrated being a project manager in a big organisation with ever more complicated projects. So frustrated she threw in the...

Health systems around the world are under strain. In the UK, post-pandemic backlogs in the NHS are at an unprecedented level, particularly for elective (non-emergency) procedures. Nowhere is innovation more needed - or more challenging, given the scale and complexity of the NHS. So here's a welcome good news story: cataract surgery in Scotland is receiving a boost of innovation pioneered in Dundee...

Theodore P. Zoli, III is one of the bridge engineering and design industry's most recognised American figures, and the first structural engineer to receive the prestigious MacArthur Foundation 'genius' Award. In this podcast interview he talks about his life and career story and how this led him to focus on new areas for innovation in bridges. Some careers seem to have a sense of destiny, or even...

Will your job be taken over by an artificial intelligence? That seems more likely with the advent of generative chatbots like ChatGPT.  My guest Beth Rudden is a cognitive scientist and a former chief data officer at IBM. As founder of Bast.ai she is working at the cutting edge of language and AI towards a safer, better world in which tools like ChatGPT can be a force for good. Beth has practical...

A podcast about the lives and careers of creative people, technology, and the future of work.  With Jonathan Winter.