The evolution of society and business

WALKER MARSH Using flower power to create positive change in Baltimore

46 ideas for a Better Tomorrow Meet the social changemakers and become one yourself

SOCIAL INNOVATOR

Editor's letter Contributors Join the revolution

Watching the news can be a grim blooming businesses. Like our cover affair these days. It’s easy to be star, Walker Marsh, who turned waste overwhelmed by all the issues and ground in his home town of Baltimore crises the world is currently dealing into a community garden, growing with, while we’re rarely presented and helping local young people Isabel de Barros with solutions. at the same time (page 26). We has worked for magazines The Red Bulletin Innovator’s travelled to the dry mountain deserts such as GQ Brazil and Social Issue is aiming to act as a of the Himalayas where a local Daslu for most of her counterbalance. Over the last few engineer creates towers to provide working . She has a months, we’ve met up with innovators, people with throughout the year particular interest in social innovation and enjoyed her trailblazers and entrepreneurs from all (page 14). In São Paulo, Brazil, we interview with São Paulo- over the world who, instead of waiting met a group of activists who tackle the based start-up Pluvi.On. for better days, are using their talent problem of and landslides with “What impressed me is and passion to make a positive change a simple device that looks like a toy that, in order to achieve their goal, they have in their corner of the planet – and are (page 86). created a whole new turning their grassroots projects into system,” she says. “A challenge most people would shy away from but not them.”

Writer Michelle Antoinette Nelson caught up Ruth Morgan with Walker is the editor of the UK Marsh at his community farm edition of The Red Bulletin in east Baltimore magazine. For this magazine, she did a shift at Refettorio Felix, a

community kitchen in FLORIAN OBKIRCHER By featuring these sustainable “It’s very easy to go about our London, run by master projects, our main aim is to inspire you passively, thinking that things are chef Massimo Bottura. and get you motivated. If you’ve ever relatively good,” says the 18-year-old, He turns waste into had the urge to start a project with a who creates tiny, low-cost drones that three-course meals. “It was an eye-opening social impact, read Sam Conniff carry out missions in dangerous and experience. He and his Allende’s five-step programme on toxic zones. “But it’s more impactful if team are tackling several how to become a modern-day pirate you understand that the world is as urgent problems but (page 10), or pick up some practical good as it is today because people in having fun, too,” she says. advice on how to get your venture off the past have identified problems and “And, needless to say, the food was delicious.” the ground from six outstanding social worked hard to solve them.” entrepreneurs under 26 (page 58). MICHELLE ANTOINETTE NELSON, CHLOE MORGAN Mihir Garimella is one of them. Enjoy the issue.

04 INNOVATOR H O W E V E R Y O U F E E L

REALLY FEEL

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Contents Stories

Sam Conniff Allende is a pirate... Page 10 …and you should be one, too. Read the award-winning social innovator’s five-step manual on how to take on the world and win

Why social innovation now? Page 22 In her essay, Red Bull Amaphiko global editor Emma Warren explains why social innovation is the future of business

Even better than Unleash your the real thing nastiness Page 32 Page 08 Samantha Payne, co-founder of the start-up This T-shirt became the Open Bionics, aims to create affordable symbol of the feminist prosthetics with superhuman functions movement. Now, its creator Amanda Brinkman has designed a card for nasty women Take a sip Page 34 You want to create positive change while you're travelling? Pack surf-pro Jon Rose’s water filter that supplies clean for thousands of people. Here’s his story…

Man-made Turning smog into Page 14 jewellery Find out about the Page 38 Himalayan ice towers that Dutch eco artist Daan Roosegaarde presents provide thousands of his newest invention: a futuristic tower that locals with drinking water cleans the air and creates black diamonds

Bring your own bag Page 42 Zero-waste shops are on the rise: visit London’s first plastic-free shop, where customers bring their own containers and buy locally sourced products

Survival of the fittest Page 50 A south London street gym is defying authority and gang culture by strengthening the local community.

And it has created a worldwide buzz SHRILL SOCIETY, LOBZANG DADUL/ICESTUPA.ORG with its new form of calisthenics

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6 under 26 Page 58 They’re young, creative and dedicated to making the world a better place: six social entrepreneurs explain how they have turned their ideas into thriving businesses

Helping plants Making waste notable and people Page 66 grow Page 26 Turning her hobby into one of Brazil’s most The story about a man innovative eco craft businesses, Ariane who has turned east Santos creates notebooks out of fabric Baltimore into a offcuts and helps support mothers flourishing neighbourhood of autistic children with his community garden How to change the world with a crazy idea Page 68 Two brothers paddled down the world’s most polluted river in plastic bottle kayaks. Their campaign got Indonesia’s president listening

Food for the soul Page 72 At his community kitchens all around the world, master chef Massimo Bottura turns food waste into nutritious meals for society’s most vulnerable members

How valuable Spotlight on South Africa is your waste? Page 78 Page 44 Meet eight of the country’s most exciting British start-up Pentatonic social entrepreneurs who create positive is turning the the furniture change: from a nut-shell based water filter to industry upside down by an app that revolutionises the school system inventing products that can be recycled infinitely No ark needed Page 86 Read about a start-up that tackles the problem of floods in its home town of São Paulo with a simple, yet genius device

Get inspired Page 93 You want to make a difference? We have some kit for you including sustainable products, inspiring podcasts and apps that help you make better purchasing decisions

Editor’s letter Join the revolution Page 04 Column Want to change the world? Start by changing yourself first Page 96 Global team Page 97 CHRISTAAN FELBER, PENTATONIC Last page The Kung Fu nuns of Nepal Page 98

INNOVATOR 07 SOCIAL

Saying it loud and proud: fellow arts worker Marian Sheppard wears one of Amanda’s designs

UNITED STATES 1FEMINISM

Unleash your nastiness

Turning a T-shirt campaign into a feminist movement, Amanda Brinkman has gained a legion of fans such as pop star Katy Perry. Now she’s back, with a card game that celebrates It was a news item on TV that Ferrell. “It was incredible,” powerful women changed Amanda Brinkman’s life Amanda says. “People were even forever. Watching the third asking me to print the ‘nasty presidential debate in October woman’ logo on baby clothes. 2016, she heard Donald Trump I could have cashed in, but I calling Hillary Clinton a ‘nasty instinctively decided against it.” woman’. Appalled by the phrase, Instead, she donated 50 per she decided to subvert it by cent of her profits to initiatives printing it onto a T-shirt, such as Planned Parenthood, and superimposed on a red heart. She used the Nasty Woman then posted it on Instagram, momentum to start an online hoping to sell four or five. platform, Shrill Society, where Instead, her T-shirts went viral, she sells clothes designed by with 10,000 orders in the first few fellow feminist designers, using days and support from celebrities sustainable materials and ethical such as Katy Perry and Will working practices.

8 INNOVATOR INNOVATOR

SPREAD THE WORD Amanda now produces a range of products on her online platform Shrill Society, with profits going to help charities

INSIDER TIP: Inspiration “What helped me in the early stages of creating the card game were conversations I had at the Red Bull Amaphiko Academy [in Baltimore 2017], meeting people who I otherwise would never have encountered”

For her next project, Amanda “To hear an Olympic changes the medium, but stays on athlete talk about their message. Her card game, The Nasty Woman Game, aims to motivational force was playfully educate its players on really meaningful; we feminism. “People were like, work on radically ‘why don’t you make a video game or an app?’” she says. “But different things but I wanted people to put down their share common ground” phones, sit around a table and start a conversation.” The goal of the game is to collect Nasty Woman cards. They are dedicated to strong female role models, from Beyoncé to Michelle Obama and Gloria Steinem, and protect you from so-called Attack cards, like the PROTEST IN PRINT TRUMP CARD In the wake of the 2016 US presidential The latest project is the Nasty Woman Mansplainer. The most interactive elections, Amanda’s Nasty Woman card game, taking her feminist elements of the game are the T-shirt became a symbol of feminism message in a new direction Statement cards, which demand the players’ creativity. “They include half a statement, such as, ‘A catcaller told you to smile, so you told him to …,’” Amanda explains. “Then everybody shouts out their response and the most hilarious answer wins a Nasty Woman card.”

FLORIAN OBKIRCHER The last player standing wins the game – and takes the title of, in Amanda’s words, the nastiest feminist of them all.

Buy the Nasty Woman Game from SHRILL SOCIETY July onwards at shrillsociety.com

INNOVATOR 9 SOCIAL

justice for all. Their true story was suppressed by the Establishment they challenged but the reality is that 300 years ago, a group of young professionals took on a UNITED KINGDOM broken system and a self- 2SELF-EMPOWERMENT interested elite because they were convinced there must be a better, fairer way of life… sounds familiar?

In my new book, Be More Pirate, This I’ve pulled together their strategies and assembled them into a five-step programme for Man is you to create progressive change. Whether you want to start a new social enterprise, shake up your a Pirate… organisation or simply tweak the way your business operates, being more pirate can give you the edge … and he tells you why over the competition. you need to be one, How to break too. Here, British 1. Rebel The original pirates’ act of the rules award-winning serial rebellion was to mutiny against the navy they had sworn an oath In his new book, Sam social entrepreneur to and begin to plunder for Conniff Allende takes and author Sam themselves rather than the crown. Steve Job’s famous That instantly made them the bad Conniff Allende guys according to their old bosses quote, ‘I’d rather be a presents his five-step but it also freed them from a life pirate than join the of poor pay and rubbish navy’, and unveils the manual on how to take workplace conditions. And, crucially, it freed them up to do visionary ideas of the on the world and win things differently. One of my Golden Age pirates WORDS BY SAM CONNIFF ALLENDE favourite modern-day pirates is (1660-1726) who are PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHIE HOPSON Malala, whose act of rebellion in writing a blog about why she and often mistakenly other girls should be able to go to referred to as You’ve probably noticed that school has turned her into a uneducated bandits. the world is desperately short of legend of our lifetime. If you’re imaginative leadership right now. thinking that both those examples He draws parallels If you’re planning on doing sound a little daunting, don’t between them and something about that, allow me to worry. Your rebellion might be a modern rebels like introduce you to a perhaps big act but it could also be a small surprising source of inspiration – step. The challenge here is to pick Elon Musk and shows pirates. If you’re thinking Long a stupid rule or convention and what we can learn from John Silver, I’d like to invite you then break it, defy it or laugh at it. their strategies to think again. The original It can’t be too easy, though. It’s eighteenth-century pirates were got to make you feel a little pioneers of innovative social uncomfortable. But so long as you thinking, rebels who passionately keep going, building on your believed in their cause. And their initial act of rebellion, you’ll get cause was not so much death or a taste for it. You’ll generate glory as riches, freedom and confidence and begin to learn

10 INNOVATOR INNOVATOR

CHIEF INNOVATOR Sam co-founded the youth-led creative network Livity, back in 2001. He has succesfully connected young people with major brands, and he also speaks at industry- leading companies

about creating change the best way of all: by doing it. Nothing will happen until you take this first step so go on, be brave. And enjoy it.

2. Rewrite Next up is rewriting the rules, and it’s this that distinguishes pirates from other troublemakers. Breaking rules is (relatively) easy. It’s coming up with new ones that makes you a pirate. The original pirates didn’t just want to tear down the old order, they wanted to create something better. It blows my mind that more than 170 years before any ‘commoners’ got the vote in Great Britain, for example, pirate crews were completely democratic institutions, run on the basis of one member, one vote. That ability to insist on doing things differently is happening today wherever you see a stand-out success story. Look at Chance the Rapper, whose single-minded vision made him the first artist to win a Grammy for a streaming- only album. That rule you just broke in the first stage? Write yourself a new one. You don’t need to think practically about how to implement it. Just aim for a clear statement of how things will be different on your ship from the way they were on the old one.

3. Reorganise The pirates knew that success would require outperforming their rivals, not outgrowing them. A pirate ship could be crewed by as few as thirty people but when

INNOVATOR 11 SOCIAL INNOVATOR there was a bigger battle to be fought, the pirate captains formed a fleet. They then crewed down again once the mission had been accomplished. This principle of agility might feel familiar to us but it was no mean feat in the age of lumbering hierarchical organisations. Today, having the right team around you can overcome even the greatest odds. Online campaigning group Avaaz, for example, connects small groups of expert people working on issues all over the world and plugs them into massive people power via its online networks. So ask yourself, who would you pick a fight with if size was no object? Whether you’re trying to figure out how to tackle unfairness at work or start a community movement, don’t tell yourself you’re too small, ask yourself what the nimble gesture would be.

4. Redistribute There are many alt-disruptors who might look like at first glance MAKING YOUR MARK like pirates but what defines the Observing a world of dramatic change and real ones is that they make an uncertainty, Sam is passionate about providing enemy of exploitation. The new, workable solutions for young people original pirates designed processes that forced fairness. For example, all pirates would receive a fair share of the plunder. 5. Retell killer app that allowed pirates to Certain crew members, like the Pirates didn’t just tell stories, they operate as an agile network, 300 captain, would receive more than creatively weaponised the art of years before those buzzwords storytelling. They told fierce tales were invented. It was part record about themselves to their of their remarkable innovations, enemies, not their friends, so that part manifesto of principles to live others would tell them again and by (or if you broke the code, to die again. Our world is full of genius by). After the Golden Age of pirate storytellers. One of my Piracy was wiped under the personal favourites is the artist carpet of history, the pirate code Banksy, who upped the stakes by eventually resurfaced in a slightly others, but only by a factor of taking his political satire from different form, as the Founding three. Pretty good compared to London to Palestine in the name Principles of the Cooperative the obscene differences we’re of calling out injustice with his Movement. So if you are a social used to seeing between the pay of trademark humour. If you want to entrepreneur, innovator or a a CEO and the office cleaner. So make big change, you can’t just mission-led business, then this take a look at some of the social talk to the people who already get message of piracy creating change enterprises that stipulate how it. Yes, of course you need a great isn’t just a metaphor for you. You profit will be shared by staff and story idea but you also need to are distantly descended from ploughed back into the business. walk it into the lion’s den. Think pirates, the original social What three values are you willing about how to reach people who innovators. I believe it’s time for to fight for, run a risk for, lose won’t like what you do but who all of us who dream of creating your job for? Only by answering need to hear it if you’re going to positive change to claim that honestly and putting in place hit the big time. heritage as our own. It’s time to strategies to ensure those be more pirate. values are protected, will your Lastly, I want to tell you a bit You can order the book at change be durable. more about the Pirate Code, the bemorepirate.com

12 INNOVATOR

Man- made glaciers

3 INDIA

14 INNOVATOR In the bare and inhospitable , ice stupas are a symbol of progress for local communities

In the Himalayan mountain desert, a local engineer creates ice structures to ensure that villagers have drinking water all year round. Simant Verma volunteered at the Ice Stupa Project last winter and gives a first-hand account of his adventure

WORDS BY SIMANT VERMA LOBZANG DADUL/ICESTUPA.ORG

INNOVATOR 15 “Three years previously, I’d been climbing with friends in Ladakh, we’d walked he taxi turned towards Phyang – a knee-deep Tsmall village in the Ladakh mountain desert on the Tibetan plateau with nothing but barren desert on either through side. In front of me lay miles of broken road and snow-clad towers snow” jutting from the ground like a scene from another planet. A few minutes into the ride, a tall white cone of ice sitting at the base of a hill some 500 metres away caught my attention. I could see tiny black dots moving around at its summit and, as I got closer, I realised those specks were people. Minutes later, I got out of the taxi, only to stare in awe at the 24-metre tall structure of ice, or ice stupa as it is famously known, right in front of me. I had to squint against the reflection of the ice’s bright white surface. To my side was a small building with a slanted plastic sheet for a roof, a solar heated house which was to be my temporary home. I wondered where I would find Surya, who had invited me on this project. “Hey, I am here,” a voice yelled out. I looked around before spotting him calling me from the ice stupa.

This was not my first visit to Ladakh. Three years previously, I’d been climbing with friends and we’d reached the summit of Golep Kangri in the Himalayas. Although the expedition, which saw us walking knee-deep through snow for hours was nerve-wracking, it helped me to form a strong connection with the

region. I hoped to come back. The SONAM WANGCHUK following year, my friends repeated the same expedition and found the

16 INNOVATOR The mountain desert of Ladakh has a powerful and panoramic beauty

INNOVATOR 17 1

3 mountain devoid of snow. This set me on a journey. I wanted to understand the impact of a warming world and 4 what role humans play in it all. Many 2 5 months later, at a work-related event, I met Surya, who was involved with the Ice Stupa Project. I knew instantly that I needed to be part of the experience.

Ladakh is a mountain desert at 1 Pipes are laid connecting over 3,000 metres high. With average to a of water sourced rainfall as low as 50mm per year, from higher up the civilisation in this brutally cold region mountains has been possible only because of the the very first ice stupa here in Ladakh 2 This is connected to a water that comes from the many – and in doing so, changed the life of tunnel and dome shaped glaciers that surround it. In fact, thousands in his community. framework locals say that the size and population of a village is dependent on the size of The first person to address the 3 Pressure created by this difference in heights creates the situated on top of it. One problem of retreating glaciers was a fountain of the primary sources of income in Chewang Norphel in the late 20th Ladakh is , which lasts for century. He constructed a wide, 4 When this water hits the only five months, given that the sloping diversion canal through a freezing water air, it forms a freezes in winter and temperatures narrow stream and built check dams cone of ice crystals are not conducive to farming. on it to reduce the flow of water and 5 The water melts slowly Decades ago, natural glaciers form a thin layer of ice in winter. It throughout the spring started receding – the massive change would melt when the temperatures months was down to developing climatic increased in spring. Unfortunately conditions. Since these glaciers had this construction was riven with receded higher up, even when spring problems. Since these were horizontal started, temperatures weren’t high ice formations, the surface area of the enough to cause them to melt, leaving glaciers was too big, so the entire agricultural fields dry during crucial glacier was exposed to the sun’s heat “The months. “Drang-Drung, probably the and would melt very quickly. The largest glacier in Ladakh, has fields would be left with a substantial retreated roughly 200 metres in the dry period before the natural glaciers largest last five years,” Thupstan, a member started melting. These constructions of the Ice Stupa Project team recalls. also required constant maintenance glacier in A changing climate has led to an and a north-facing valley to erratic water supply and frequent them from the sun. cloudbursts. Thus, water isn’t Ladakh has there when it’s needed but is Inspired by Chewang Norphel’s work available in late spring when the and to tackle these problems, retreated sowing time has passed. Wangchuk and his team came up with the idea of building a cone of ice. The roughly As agriculture has taken a down-turn, idea for the ice stupa came to him the villages are no longer an several years ago, one morning late in attraction for local youth, who are May, while he was driving in Ladakh. 200 metres starting to seek employment To his surprise, he spotted a piece of opportunities elsewhere. ice hanging from under a bridge. “I in the last “The city of Leh is exploding with realised it was not the temperature the added pressure of tourism, plus that was causing the ice to melt away, five years. all the locals are moving there, and it was the effect of direct ,” he further afield, to find employment, says. After many failed attempts, as while our villages are imploding with he fondly recalls, he and his team of Agriculture only the oldest generation left behind local students were able to arrive at a to take care of whatever is left of our is at an all- agriculture,” Sonam Wangchuk explained to me. The 51-year-old local with silver hair and an infectious time low” smile is a mechanical engineer by trade. In 2013, he invented and built

18 INNOVATOR Traditional crops are barley, wheat and vegetables, plus apricot and apple trees

Sonam Wangchuk has been an instrumental force in the creation of the ice stupa COURTESY OF MAIL DAILY ONLINE, STEFAN WALTER//ROLEX AWARDS

INNOVATOR 19 LOBZANG DADUL, SONAM DORJAY

20 INNOVATOR A stupa is traditionally a dome-shaped Buddhist structure, often containing relics and used for prayer The next day started early. Surya and I decided to thread the south face of the stupa. He put on his crampons and started climbing on the working model of the conical ice treacherous ice. As we began to add stupa. Since this cone would grow the threads, Surya noticed a huge gap vertically up towards the sun, less right under his feet. “First of all, we surface area would be exposed to the should put more branches here, or sun’s rays and hence it would hold the weight of the ice will make it water efficiently until June, till the collapse without a base underneath. natural glaciers would start to melt. Please go and get some branches.” He “We use high-school level science pointed to a distance 20 metres away. here,” says Wangchuk. “Gravity builds I dutifully walked back and forth pressure in the pipe, while the carrying heavy thorn-covered sprinklers distribute the volume of branches until all the gaps were Simant Verma, 23, is a water. The droplets, when exposed to properly filled, every step proving mountaineer and admirer of all minus 20-degree air, freeze to take twice as hard in the high altitude. I things outdoors. He now works full the shape of a cone.” was relieved when team leader Shara time as a project manager of the The conical structures could be called us in for lunch. Gasping for air, Ice Stupa Project in Ladakh. He placed right next to the villages where I took tiny steps on the slippery ice has previously worked with rural communities, training them in water was needed. Each 18-metre back to our base where we would beekeeping and sustainable honey stupa has the capacity to hold roughly gather for our meal. harvesting, as part of India Fellow, 1.5 to 2 million litres of water. In the Later, the ten local team members a social leadership programme winter of 2016-17, the team was able plus Surya and I sat down to dinner. to store roughly ten million litres. Everyone was upbeat, making jokes Each spring, the from about the day’s work. “How can you these stupas is used to irrigate 5,000 be so chirpy after all the hard work trees planted by villagers to start the you do every day in such cold process of greening the desert. Apart weather? Where does your from water conservation, the stupas come from?” I asked. Mingyur, co- nights we spend joking with each attract thousands of tourists to the team leader, answered: “You’re other are what give us the energy to village, boosting their local economy. looking at it upside down. These get out and work in -10°C in the mornings. It’s not easy, but it’s our It was time to get to work. I put all my way of life here.” I smiled at him. It layers on: buff, cap, sunglasses and all made sense. gloves. The temperature had fallen to On my last night, I decided to -10°C. Surya instructed me to help brave the cold to get a last view of the him put wire, thorny branches and “I walked ice stupas in all their glory. Similar to nets on the ice stupa. “These act as a a volcano, a massive fountain of nucleus for ice to form around,” he water erupts from the top of the explained. “When water from the back and sculptures, flowing through the pipes fountain sprinkles onto them, a layer straight down from the glacier. The of ice forms overnight. In addition, forth freezing air temperature crystalises the dripping water forms stalactites, the water droplets as they hit the exponentially increasing the amount carrying ground, adding to the stupa’s cone. of ice over many days.” With the droplets sparkling in the That night over dinner with moonlight, this impressive spectacle Wangchuk, I witnessed how his face heavy of nature made me proud to have would light up while he devised witnessed an ingenious idea that has solutions to multiple problems at branches, taken shape in one of the most once. The team was also in the inhospitable regions of the world. process of experimenting with a every step Two tall ice structures as a symbol of cheaper method of building ecological healing and a world horizontal artificial glaciers by cutting adapting to its situation. steps into the valley. These would proving hard Wangchuk and his team are in store winter water in the form of ice tune with the rhythm of their while breaking the flow of an in the high changing environment; now with oncoming . A solution which these structures of ice they have could save many lives and found a way to hold on to their in the village downstream. altitude” culture and way of life. Wangchuk calls this a “win, win, win, win situation!” icestupa.org

INNOVATOR 21 4-9 INTERNATIONAL FUTURE OF BUSINESS Dominic ‘Farmer’ Nell is driving around west Baltimore, killing time before collecting his grandmother from the dentist. It’s a break of sorts for this busy photographer turned urban farmer and social innovator. At the start of each week, he runs Monday Microgreens, teaching school kids to grow their own salad and kale. On Tuesday, he’s the driver behind a unique nutrition class: “I teach youths Why vegan cookery as a survival skill, how we’d cook if the supermarkets closed down.” On Wednesdays, you’ll find him running trauma-informed yoga – an important offering in a city that’s social averaged one murder a day for the last three years. “Teaching people to breathe gives them the ability to reflect. It’s important from a behavioural standpoint: all this innovation violence comes from trauma and from people reacting. When you react, you don’t think. When you breathe, you think.” now? Dominic is part of a new breed of social innovators, using talent and energy to make a difference. The US Social Enterprise Census indicates There is a new Here, Red Bull social innovation is responsible for over $300 million in revenue, in a generation of Amaphiko global sector which covers a wide range of people from unicorn-funded tech entrepreneurs who are editor Emma Warren start-ups to super grassroots innovators using the reality of championing social asks social innovators unemployment and the gig economy change instead of from all the world what to invent their jobs – jobs which also benefit their community. His daily being in it solely for drives them – and grind is a perfect fit with the definition offered by Alison Harris of profit. They are taking finds out how they South African social enterprise Sk8

for Gr8, who engages kids with EMMA WARREN matters into their own have turned social skateboard design. “Social innovation,” she says, “is creativity hands, rather than ideas into thriving with the purpose of turning problems wait for someone else businesses into opportunities.” “We need to stop viewing making to do it. And they are money as separate from making a difference,” adds Alison. “It is our job taking advantage of as social innovators to create new business models that challenge these resources they are mind-sets, sustainable businesses that function with the needs of our city able to access, instead and not separate from it.” of relying on funds. Simply put, they are Going global the future The model has become a worldwide phenomenon. In 2016, the Global Entrepreneurship

Monitor’s Social Entrepreneurship KEATON RICH, AUDREY GATEWOOD, NURI YILMAZER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL Report confirmed that it is taking root

22 INNOVATOR address social issues that affect their communities. “I definitely think that people are activating themselves and reorienting the ways they think about their journeys, their careers and their footprint in the world to address the prominent social issues we’re faced with,” she says. “There are several reasons why our generation and Gen Z are championing social change,” she adds. “Technology, social media, increased access [to different] voices and new career paths are going to keep creating this snowball effect of more people finding their life commitment and professional pathways in social good work.”

Bootstrapping good ideas

You don’t need loads of cash to get started. That’s the experience of Brazilian Franz Thomas who runs Navegando nas Artes, a sailing school for favela youth on the Billings Reservoir, São Paulo. The school promotes sailing, repairing broken boats, building self- DOMINIC confidence and self-awareness and ‘FARMER’ NELL With his start-up, City running workshops with local graffiti Weeds, Dominic teaches artists, who teach young sailors how students about to decorate their boats. microgreens in city schools “It is possible to start from scratch with very little money,” says Franz. “People in this area have been globally, with more entrepreneurs showing a lot of daring and creativity focusing on doing good, rather than when resources are scarce. Many solely on making a profit. It’s people have accomplished, and are growth that comes partly from a still undertaking, amazing projects, generational increase in people with minimal funds.” favouring meaning over big money. The school began by taking Last year’s Better Business, Better advantage of the resources they had World report found that millennials access to: office workers, partner are over five times more likely to stay projects, other schools – and even at a company where they feel a the dam itself. strong sense of purpose. Social innovation is a creative “Before, when I’d go into corporate beast that can shift and transform to spaces, people would be like, ‘talk address almost any need, large or numbers, get that money,’” says tech small. Ava Pipitone and Max founder Ava Pipitone. “I just Goodman invented HostHome to competed in Founder Gym [a platform address homelessness amongst to train under-represented founders discriminated groups. It’s an ‘online, building tech start-ups] in San donor-powered, housing rental Francisco. Everyone had numbers DE NICHOLS marketplace’, which began as a pilot Mobilising global changemakers to but they had a social mission too.” activate ideas that address civic and last summer with £900 raised by social challenges, De Nichols servers friends and family, initially aimed De Nichols founded Civic Creatives as the Social Impact Design Principal at LGBTQ communities. “It’s precisely in order to ride this wave. of Civic Creatives scalable to different identities and Her company creates tools and demographics,” explains Ava, “like services that help citizens creatively survivors of domestic violence who

INNOVATOR 23 don’t go to a shelter because the same thing can happen, or returning citizens who find it hard to get housed [when they leave prison].”

The revolution grows

The power of social innovation is particularly pronounced in the UK, where the annual State of Social Enterprise report identified 70,000 social enterprises, contributing £24 billion to the economy and employing nearly a million people.

“The social economy has made great SIAN ANDERSON strides in the last 20 years,” says Mark The DJ and presenter Norbury, CEO of leading support started FLOOR SIXX, organisation UnLtd. “It’s a growing mentoring students who and vibrant sector.” Since launching seek a future in the music industry in 2002, it has backed 14,000 social entrepreneurs. It’s profitable, too: UnLtd found that 70 per cent of UK social businesses made a profit or broke even last year. Sam Conniff Allende knows more than most about social innovation. The author of the newly-published Be More Pirate (see page 10) broke with convention back in 2001, when he co-founded a social enterprise, Livity. He worked with brands who wanted to do something positive and collaborated with local young people to create the campaigns – a completely radical idea at the time.

“I think this generation of social innovators are more comfortable with She’s more than just a DJ though, profit than the last,” Sam says. having set up FLOOR SIXX, to “They’re capable of sophisticated and offer creative industry training to nuanced thinking and can hold two 16-24 year-olds who might not seemingly opposing ideas in mind at otherwise access it. She found her once. This versatility is a positive creative beginnings at Sam Conniff by-product of growing up in a Allende’s Livity, which included a time of volatility. youth-run publication. “Secondly, the [first] generation of social innovators were so seemingly “I was lucky enough to have Live ‘anti-profit’ because they were part of Magazine to give me practical the first wave of named ‘social experience in media,” says Sian. “It entrepreneurs’. That was a radical act was limitless, anything I wanted to requiring clear convictions and firm do was possible. When Live shut beliefs. Now the requirements have down, I struggled to find an changed, social enterprises rely less alternative place to send young on funding and more on income and, people to, so the obvious thing to do to me, that’s a good thing. The was set one up myself.” opportunity, he says, is for a truly AVA PIPITONE sustainable sector with appeal to the As executive director of the Baltimore ‘classic’ entrepreneurs who’ll help Transgender Alliance, she co-founded Finding your power expand their influence. HostHome – a start-up providing housing for those experiencing homelessness Sian’s programme began life in 2016

Pioneering grime DJ Sian Anderson as a small pilot under the name One SHAN WALLACE/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, LINDY DREW PHOTOGRAPHY has a weekly show on BBC1Xtra. True Calling, run with fellow

24 INNOVATOR Red Bull Londoner and Beats 1 presenter Julie Adenuga. It now covers production, presenting, photography, Amaphiko videography, events, journalism and PR. This self-started, grassroots The programme has been giving wings to education is especially impressive, pioneers using their talent, creativity and given that 91 per cent of schools in the UK face real-terms budget cuts, energy to solve social problems since 2014. with music and the arts being squeezed out of the curriculum. Over 100 grassroots social innovators have passed through the 18-month immersive There’s a high degree of financial and emotional investment from the new programme, which has taken place in the breed of social innovators: Sian Anderson funded FLOOR SIXX US, Brazil and South Africa herself. “I ended up paying for the programme from money I made as a DJ alongside my business partner J2K, collaborating with brands like Red Bull for space and facilities, Nando’s for food – places who couldn’t offer cash but had the equivalent of large amounts in facilities, which was just as good as a cheque.” There’s undoubtedly a shift towards working with brands, says Sam Conniff Allende, who has spent two decades championing big business involvement in social innovation. “On the upside, there’s some sincere leadership taking place at large organisations, who in partnership with social innovators, Soweto, 2014. The first Red The 18-month programme can do more than most governments,” he says. “On the Bull Amaphiko Academy is begins with a ten-day downside, it’s created a new taking place at a community Academy where each day category of ‘mission-led businesses’ centre near Vilakazi Street, contains inspiration and and there’s more than enough sheep where Nelson Mandela lived. mentorship alongside to hide a few wolves. The only Here, 16 handpicked practical skills like business answer is that this new generation grassroots social planning. Afterwards, holds them to account, and entrepreneurs are meeting participants team up with a approaches brands with enthusiasm and ambition but also with high big brains from MIT or are mentor to develop business, expectations for clarity and huddled in mentoring personal and strategic accountability.” sessions on colourful development plans. cushions. They’re all Between Academies, social Back to Dominic in Baltimore. As well developing innovative ideas: innovators in countries with as his daily projects around urban a recycled school bag with a farming, photography and yoga, he’s existing programmes can road-safe reflective strip, also piloting a job-readiness app apply for taster-style and a solar panel that titled MyNiche. “It’s leveraging the Connect events. Find out if enables night-time study; hustle,” he says. He grew up visiting there’s a Connect family in the country with two acres mobile billboards that give programme in your country and a swimming pool and he’s using informal rubbish collectors and follow the constant these experiences to bring urban income and stability. farming to life for young kids in stream of inspirational Baltimore. “I was a country boy, That was just the beginning. stories about social going barefoot, climbing trees. It’s Over 100 pioneering change- innovators on the hard for youth now, growing makers have since gone Red Bull Amaphiko social up in the concrete jungle.” through Academies in the channels. “I want to pass it on. I’m showing US, Brazil and South Africa. them it’s possible: you can do the same thing.”

INNOVATOR 25 By turning empty wasteground into a community garden, Walker Marsh has regenerated an abandoned corner of east Baltimore. He explains how he’s encouraged teens with a criminal record to help with the flower farm and build new lives

WORDS BY MICHELLE ANTOINETTE NELSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTAAN FELBER Helping grow plants and people

10 UNITED STATES URBAN FARMING

26 INNOVATOR Bringing horticultural therapy to a deprived area, Walker has helped his community

INNOVATOR 27 the local Growing Green Initiative in 2014 and won the programme’s design competition. His vision for Tha Flower Factory was to provide a sense of ownership in the community and encourage environmental . “People look at a neighbourhood like this and they don’t see much in the way of hope,” Walker told The Baltimore Sun in 2016. “I’m hoping this shows that there’s a lot that can be done with the resources we have.” The name for the venture was suggested by Eric Booker, the Broadway East Community Association president. Walker loved the name except that he made one small but very important edit. our years ago, the intersection at “I changed the spelling of ‘the’ to North Gay and Washington Street in ‘tha’ because I feel like it was an Feast Baltimore was not exactly the expression of my personal most vibrant spot in town. The street background. As a black man growing scene was characterised by empty up in Baltimore, that’s how we would terraced houses with boards nailed write ‘the’ and I really wanted our over the windows and heavy traffic. name to have a lot of character.” That all changed with the arrival In just a few weeks, his premises of Walker Marsh. The tall, bearded will be home to hundreds of plants, figure started an initiative to bring specifically his favourites. beauty to the neighbourhood – by “Sunflowers are good for the turning vacant into an oasis in neighbourhood because they take the middle of the concrete desert. carbon out of the air and lead out “Welcome to Tha Flower Factory,” of the soil,” Marsh explains. Even “People Walker greets us on arrival and walks though he’s convinced that his work us through the half-acre spot he has delivers a healing element to the city, reserved for his community garden. he has faced some adversity. “During look at a “I have to dig up the weeds and the anniversary of the death of replant the grass,” he says, pointing to Freddie Gray, I went downtown with neighbour- a patch of vegetation. “I put grass a bucket full of flowers, and was seed down earlier but then I forgot to handing them out [Freddie Gray, hood like put the straw over it so the birds ate 25, died in police custody a week it. Of course, the weeds came back. after his arrest by Baltimore police But I kind of like them, they add in 2015]. I wasn’t even really talking this and beautiful colour,” he says. about the farm, I was just giving flowers to folk and a guy looked don’t see It’s a sunny day in late April. For at me like, ‘What the fuck is wrong Walker, this means he’s busy getting with you?’ I answered, ‘It’s just a much hope. the plot ready for the new season. flower, man.’ Also, when I have been “Everything can be a weed, a tomato out here with my young helpers, I can can be a weed if someone tell by the looks on their faces that I’m hoping doesn’t want it there, so these may just stay as a part of the garden.” It’s this shows an unusual statement coming from a gardener, but it says a lot about Walker’s approach to his passion. there’s a lot According to a thesis by landscape architect Che-Wei Yi, vacant that can be properties [in Baltimore] often become an invitation for crime, done” dumping and other unsociable activities, whereas well-maintained, urban green spaces can reduce crime, strengthen social ties and improve physical and mental health. With that in mind, Walker applied for a grant at

28 INNOVATOR they question why I am a dude growing flowers,” he recalls. Walker is referring to the nine young people that Tha Flower Factory employed in 2016. They were recruited from the juvenile justice system to make positive changes in their lives. Most were receptive to his instruction in horticulture and management practices and showed a keen interest in starting businesses of their own, he told The Baltimore Sun. Unfortunately, the programme did not get the funding it needed to bring the young band of helpers back in 2018. Now, Walker is working with a member of the English department at nearby Dunbar High School to teach students how to grow plants in the school’s greenhouse. Despite changes to the programme and the funding challenges, Walker continues to tend the plot and find opportunities to help communicate his mission. In the summer of 2017, Equipment and tools are Green-fingered gardener he was chosen to be a part of the first kept in a brightly painted Walker ensures the grounds Red Bull Amaphiko Academy in the storage container are always cared for, bringing US. The programme is a launchpad beauty to a forgotten area for grassroots social entrepreneurs who are making a positive difference in their community: to give them the inspiration, mentorship and practical skills needed to enrich their lives. Walker’s eyes gleam as he talks about the programme. “Red Bull Amaphiko helped me understand the fact that I had created a non-profit but I was trying to turn it into a for- profit,” he says. “My mentor Tara [Roberts, an award-winning social entrepreneur and journalist] asked me the greatest question: ‘Walker, do you think that you actually need to sell flowers to achieve your goal for Tha Flower Factory?’ That led me to think about what people would actually like. The first season I grew sunflowers and people really liked them. The next season I didn’t do them and people wanted to know where the sunflowers went. So I decided to do them again. Now, I’m transitioning into just being a for-profit venture and growing sunflowers for the seeds to have as snacks, essential oils and sunflower butter.” This year, instead of selling the flowers to nearby cafes and

INNOVATOR 29 With Red Bull Amaphiko support, Walker is looking forward to putting new ideas into action

30 INNOVATOR “Sunflowers Four steps are good to starting a community for the area garden

because Maybe you’ve spotted an unloved corner of your city that they take could do with the Walker Marsh touch. We asked him for advice There is now a good stock of gardening the carbon on how to create a community equipment for students and helpers out of the garden – here are his tips: STEP 1 TRY IT FIRST neighbours, Walker plans to sell his own sunflower products at farmers’ air and “It’s best to test out your green- markets, vendor events, corner shops fingered skills first so make sure – and to people in the community. lead out you get some growing But the business is not just about experience. If there is anywhere making a profit. While walking back of the soil” you can start a small garden, to the plot, a customer stops Walker give it a try and see what it is like to ask, “Can I grow healing herbs to grow plants and flowers. Or here?” Walker seems delighted by the idea and gives her a tour, while you can start by volunteering at explaining his vision for the space a farm or helping a friend with designed for the community garden. their garden.” When he’s finished, he climbs up onto his brightly spray-painted metallic STEP 2 FIND YOUR storage container next to the gardens, WATER SOURCE where all the tools are stored. From “This is critical for your new here, with a bird’s eye view, he can survey the grounds and he venture – find where your quickly takes some photographs. It’s source of water is. You need to all part of his mission: capturing design your garden around memories and documenting new how easy it is to get the water narratives about the blossoming life to the plants.” on the east side of Baltimore. instagram.com/thaflowerfactory STEP 3 FIND YOUR PIECE OF LAND “The third step is acquiring the land! If you have somewhere in mind and you don’t know if you can rent the space, speak to your community association or council and tell them what you want to do. The most important thing is to get connected with the community.”

STEP 4 TOOLS AND SUPPLIES “The fourth step is acquiring your tools and supplies. Visit a tool bank or get into a tool-share initiative because gardening tools can get very expensive.”

Getting to grips with the lawnmower

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BALANCING ACT Co-founder Samantha Payne. She is proud to have a 50:50 gender ratio at Open Bionics and feels this has been a positive factor for product development

11UNITED KINGDOM BIONICS

mimic the human hand,” Samantha says. “Kids are less constrained. We did workshops with young amputees, and it was their ideas that inspired us to create superhero arms.” A royalty-free agreement with Disney allows Open Even Bionics to make prosthetic arms based on characters Bionic hands can cost up from movies such as Iron Man better to £60,000 from private and Frozen. In April, the providers. That’s a lot of company launched the Hero money, when you consider Arm. The futuristic-looking than that 135 people a week in the device, which can be custom UK undergo amputations as a made for children as young result of diabetes alone. One as eight, is controlled in the real start-up is pushing the response to muscle boundaries. “We’re creating movements which are devices with the same detected by sensors within thing functionality for under the prosthetic. Weighing less £10,000,” says Samantha than a kilogram, it can lift up Payne, co-founder of Open to eight. The UK-based start- Bionics. “We’ve changed manufacturing methods – Samantha and her team of 19 up Open Bionics is instead of metal we use are thinking about putting plastic, and instead of more of the kids’ ideas into revolutionising the injection moulding we use 3D action. “They want a prosthetics market printing.” As a result of their smartphone or speakers built innovation, the Bristol-based into their prosthetic, and to by creating robotics start-up won the be able to charge their phone affordable 3D bionic 2015 James Dyson Award in from their hand,” she says. the UK. “At the moment, we’re still arms. Co-founder Four years ago, Samantha focused on creating a bionic and her business partner, limb that can do the most Samantha Payne’s robotics engineer Joel good for a lot of people. Gibbard, started research on But in the future, I can

future mission is to FLORIAN OBKIRCHER how to improve the lives of definitely see us working on turn disabilities into amputees. Lowering the cost bionic limbs that have was important but their main superhuman functionalities.” superpowers goal was to pay more attention to the aesthetics openbionics.com and how the device feels to the amputee, especially to children, when it’s something they wear on a daily basis.

“If you ask an adult, ‘How do

you want your bionic hand to GETTY IMAGES, PHOTOS BY OPEN BIONICS look?’, they say it should

32 INNOVATOR INNOVATOR

INSIDER TIP: Inspiring confidence “Many young people assume that you can’t pitch to an investor unless you have a business development degree. As a journalist, I didn’t study business or engineer and yet I launched a tech start- up with no previous experience. At the start, you need to be curious, passionate and have confidence in order to persuade Tilly Lockey, 12, lost both her hands to Daniel Melville is a tester for Open Bionics. meningitis as a baby. Of her prototype robot The hand he’s wearing won the company people that you have hand, she told the BBC, ‘It looks awesome a Guinness World Record for the world’s and it makes you feel confident’ first prosthetic limb based on a an ambitious vision.” videogame (Deus Ex)

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Almost like magic, Jon’s easily- transportable filters work in seconds, bringing much- needed drinking water to communities 12UNITED STATES/INDONESIA WATER PURIFICATION

Jon Rose always takes the first sip of water himself. He is holding a glass of cloudy brown water in one hand – water that contains soil deposits and parasites. In his other hand, he is holding the same water from the same well, only this time there’s nothing brown swimming around in it. It is clean and pretty much clear because, just a minute earlier, the 40-year-old had poured it into a plastic bucket and run it through Take a small, inconspicuous filter. As soon as Jon has drunk the filtered swill, the ice is broken, whether that be in Haiti, India, a sip Indonesia, Sierra Leone or any other country in the world. Because if this guy from America Former pro surfer is willing to expose his immune system to this water, then it can’t Jon Rose has be all that bad. Everyone around changed the lives of him gives the filter a shot – he always carries one around in millions of people his rucksack. “One single filter can provide with a simple water up to one million gallons of clean filter. And by joining water,” says Jon, a former professional surfer from his guerrilla relief California, who laid the movement, Waves foundations for his international providing close to eight million aid organisation – Waves for people with clean drinking water. for Water, you can Water – eight years ago. “Using Back in September 2009, Jon this £25 filtration system gives up had planned a two-week holiday do so, too to 100 people access to clean to Indonesia, to ride the waves water. A hollow fibre membrane and travel around the country safely filters five of the most with friends. He packed ten water common pathogenic bacteria – filters. His father’s job involved cholera, giardia, salmonella, E.coli water purification in developing and typhus – out of the water.” countries and Jon thought they WALTRAUD HABLE might come in handy if they He’s still surprised at how simple passed through some small village the idea is and how well it works. with no access to clean water. The Simplicity is important for Jon – holiday turned into a trip that he never planned to be the would change his life. One day, founder of a large aid Jon and his surfer buddies boarded organisation. He sees himself a boat in Padang, a town on the more as a guerrilla aid worker west coast of Sumatra, to spend who just happens to have the night out at sea. What awaited

contributed – via Waves for them when they came back to D.J. STRUNTZ, WAVESFORWATER.ORG Water’s work in 32 countries – to shore was a scene of devastation.

34 INNOVATOR INNOVATOR

How the filters work

Waves for Water uses hollow fibre membrane filters that eliminate sediment and bacteria bigger than 0.1 micron. Bacteria such as cholera, E. coli, salmonella, streptococcus, botulism and giardia are between 0.2 and 5 microns in size, so they get caught in the membrane. The filters need to be cleaned regularly. If they’re very dirty they should be cleaned daily, otherwise, once every two to three weeks will suffice – and they can last for up to five years. On average, a single £25 water filter will purify up to 4.5 million litres of water. All you need to get started is a clean bucket. The filters come with a connector, a As a professional surfer, Jon was in Indonesia to hole-cutter to cut an hole ride the waves when he in the bucket, an adapter experienced the hose, a filter cleaner and a devastation of an earthquake. This was the filter hanger. catalyst for his new life

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While he had been sailing, Sumatra had been struck by a 7.6-magnitude earthquake. It was a natural disaster that claimed almost 1,000 lives and left 100,000 people without shelter, power or water. Jon didn’t wait long to pitch in – his water filters turned out to be a godsend. Once back on US soil, he bought more filters and then headed off again, this time to Haiti. A devastating earthquake in January 2010 had laid waste to whole swathes of the country. “I thought I would be there for a couple of weeks but I ended up staying for two years,” he says. “I created a little website, people started donating organically and that money would go directly into buying more filters. I didn’t need much money for my own needs, and I didn’t have any staff.”

“I created a little website, people started donating and that money went directly into filters. I didn’t need Waves for Water courier Jon advises against looking much money for programme, a DIY distribution for the usual representatives. network based on Jon’s motto: It’s better to seek out those who my own needs “Do what you love, and help along are respected in the community the way.” Any traveller – whether for what they do: midwives, and I didn’t they’re surfers, climbers or teachers, doctors and healthcare ramblers – can buy water filters workers. “But you can just hook have any staff.” online and take them where up with people that you connect they’re most needed. with,” he says. “It could be a taxi “We provide the filters and driver, someone you meet at a WALTRAUD HABLE Jon has never been interested instructions on how to use them restaurant or a local family. in classic fundraising. He doesn’t correctly,” Jon explains. “Every Maybe they will get involved want to be a strategist for an traveller should be able to create because you helped them.” One international aid organisation. He their own set of experiences. thing quickly leads to another. still thinks of himself as a surfer Some just want to be involved for Jon states there are three things – travelling the world in search of a day or two and then carry on sharing meals, playing music and the best wave who, almost as a with a totally regular holiday telling stories about your own sideline, provides swift access to whereas others have more time to family – which always foster trust, clean drinking water without red offer. But we’re very happy to give regardless of the culture. “Locals

tape. And it is for precisely this tips on how to make initial contact know what’s needed. If you go to D.J. STRUNTZ, WAVESFORWATER.ORG reason that he created the and gain a community’s trust.” an area where they have a

36 INNOVATOR INNOVATOR

preexisting condition – natural or In Nigaragua, Jon and manmade – either chemicals from helpers offload buckets a factory or heavy arsenic and supplies as part of a humanitarian assistance elements in the ground, they will programme in 2015 know about it.” The Waves for Water filters are not up to eliminating those, admittedly, After a typhoon in the but, as Jon stresses, in 90 per cent Philippines in 2013, a of cases, water is contaminated crowd gathers to watch Jon’s demonstration of with pathogens that the filters can his water filters eliminate all too well. “Probably my most important message is, with these filters, you can do no wrong. If the community or village you go to has an arsenic issue, they’ve been dealing with this anyway. Still, the filters will prevent people from getting diarrhoea or other Water pipes are brought ashore in Nicaragua to waterborne diseases.” help with flood management The filters always have a positive impact on social structure, too. Jon talks of an Indonesian village where the infant mortality rate is 50 per cent. “Every other baby dies. The main focus for women is water. Every day they walk six miles for it – some may be sexually assaulted along the way. They spend the rest of their day collecting firewood to boil that water [to kill any germs]. They don’t have time for their crafts or to generate some small amount of income. So, if you go in and do a filter system for them, you can make a real change.”

wavesforwater.org

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13THE NETHERLANDS/CHINA AIR FILTRATION

Turning smog into jewellery

In Beijing, one of

the world’s most in Beijing polluted cities, reached new and hazardous record levels in January a futuristic tower 2013. Residents of the Chinese capital were advised sucks in pollution. to avoid outdoor activities This filtered smog as air quality was 30 times above the level judged as then goes through a safe by the World Health form of alchemy as Organisation. Daan Roosegaarde, a Dutch improving air quality up to 70 From top: an aerial innovator Daan view of the tower, artist-turned-entrepreneur, per cent within its radius. Roosegaarde turns where smog is had been working in China The tower sucks in collected; social and it into diamonds for six years when this news pollution from its technological broke. It confirmed his surroundings and pushes out innovator Daan opinion that the world was clean air after filtration; Roosegaarde evolving technologically inside, it collects the filtered faster than our actual smog particles. “It’s the most understanding of the harm disgusting thing you’ve ever we’re causing in the process. smelled,” says Daan. “It’s like He was determined to do death in powder form. Just something about it. think about it, that stuff Two years later, at 798 Art would be inside your body.” Zone, a design district in Filtered smog is nearly 40 Beijing, he presented his per cent carbon, which is the smog-free tower, a seven- same substance that metre-tall aluminium diamonds are made of. structure. Using a mere 1,170 Abiding by the old saying, watts of green electricity and ‘when life gives you lemons, positive ionisation make lemonade’, what could technology, the tower is the Daan do, but make jewellery? first air purifier of its kind He produced his smog-free ever built. It is capable of rings and cufflinks, which

38 INNOVATOR INNOVATOR

In a park next to Beijing’s 798 Art Zone, the smog-free tower helps to keep the city’s dangerous pollution levels down RICHARD LOAT STUDIO ROOSEGAARDE

INNOVATOR 39 SOCIAL

This tower is in the port city of Tianjin in northeastern China RICHARD LOAT ISTOCK STUDIO ROOSEGAARDE

40 INNOVATOR INNOVATOR

something, then that becomes From top: Daan now an obsession and you keep operates on a global learning more along the level with his smog- way. In fact, your obsession free project; the condensed particles motivates you to learn of smog more quickly.” In that sense, he would describe himself as an explorer. In a world where every corner has been mapped, exploring new frontiers has evolved and Daan feels today’s explorers “hack, upgrade and tweak”. contain compressed smog From solar-energy-generating from 1,000 m3 of clean air. cycle paths in the Netherlands Like an alchemist, he created to smog-free bicycles in China, something beautiful and the Dutch entrepreneur is desirable from a waste hacking our everyday and product. Furthermore, offering up Earth-friendly jewellery sales help fund the alternatives. “Energy is all expansion of smog-free around us, it’s just a matter of towers. In recent years, harnessing it,” Daan says, as they’ve popped up across he describes his wind- China and in Poland. harvesting kites that can Did he have any previous stay up for months – just knowledge of the topic before one of dozens of designs by working on it? Daan, a Daan that his studios are naturally reserved individual, implementing. takes time to answer: “I knew nothing. In fact, I was even a More recently, the explorer- smoker! But you don’t need to entrepreneur’s work has know about your topic when attracted the interest of you start out,” he says. “If you American agencies looking have a natural curiosity for at reducing space debris that is threatening the world’s network of satellites. Needless to say, tackling the BLACK DIAMONDS issue of 29,000 pieces of A popular choice as a wedding space debris is the perfect ring, it contains a cube of challenge for a modern-day INSIDER TIP: compressed smog, collected explorer like Daan. from the smog-free towers Persevere studioroosegaarde.net “Try imagining yourself as one of those machines that serves tennis balls. You throw proposals out into the world, one after another, and see which ones get a reaction and get hit back. Validation of some of our wildest ideas was key to knowing what to explore further.”

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14UNITED KINGDOM ZERO-WASTE SHOPPING

Bring

your Freshly-baked breads about this woman called and cakes sit on wooden Lauren Singer in New York, LEAP INTO THE shelves. Preserving jars with who went zero waste. She UNKOWN Ingrid says she handwritten labels are filled accumulated only enough own bag wasn’t a ‘classic with spices and nuts. On the rubbish to fill one jar in two hippy’ – she used to floor, you’ll find vegetables years,” she says. “I was work in marketing At this pop-up shop and fruit in wicker baskets. inspired to do the same but for a big oil company, On entering Bulk Market that’s almost impossible if before changing in east London, you might you shop at conventional course and starting in east London, you her eco-business feel like you’re in a past stores. So, I started my own.” have to bring your century. But as soon as you Zero-waste shops are own containers. With speak to the shop owner springing up all over Europe, Ingrid Caldironi, it becomes Germany alone has over 60. its zero-waste policy, clear that this seemingly old- Although they can’t compete Bulk Market shows fashioned style of shop has a with discount supermarket very modern ethos. prices, Ingrid says that what the future of Bulk Market is London’s plastic-free has the potential first zero-waste supermarket. to become mainstream, grocery shopping It’s a plastic-free shop where referring to the Canadian could look like customers bring their own retailer Bulk Barn with its containers and buy grocery 260 stores. “Things aren’t goods and other items. Stock designed in a circular is mostly sourced locally from economy mindset yet,” she FLORIAN OBKIRCHER social enterprises. The breads says. “I think there should come from a local bakery that be incentives for companies employs women from a to use better packaging. disadvantaged background, Avoiding waste is clearly the the vegetables are harvested future, and shops like Bulk at local community farms. Market can lead the way.” Ingrid launched Bulk Market in August 2017, Find out about Bulk Market’s mainly because of frustration new east London shop, due to launch this summer, at with normal supermarkets. DEVLIN PHOTOS, APPEARHERE.CO.UK “Three years ago, I read bulkmarket.uk

42 INNOVATOR INNOVATOR

GREEN ROOM Not only grocery items make it onto the shelves at Bulk Market – there are around 300 products including bamboo toothbrushes and pet food. There are plans for a composting machine in the new shop

NEW PASTURES… Bulk Market’s pop-up shop in Dalston proved the business model had a future; Ingrid is looking for a bigger space and plans to reopen in summer

INSIDER TIP: Seed capital “I wasn’t able to get funding for my project at the start, but that’s no excuse to give up. Instead of renting a big space right away (for a commercial lease you often need to sign a 10-year contract), I opened a pop-up shop. This way, you can test the water with less to lose. Now, with a successful crowd-funding campaign under my belt, I feel confident to open a bigger shop.”

INNOVATOR 43 How valuable is your waste? WORDS BY KIERAN YATES

Global polluter, the single-use water bottle, becomes a valuable in the hands of regeneration experts

15 UNITED KINGDOM CIRCULAR ECONOMY

44 INNOVATOR Humans have produced more than nine billion tons of plastic since the 1950s. Only nine per cent is recycled. London/Berlin- based start-up Pentatonic seeks to make a change. Promoting the circular zero- waste economy, the visionary company turns waste into high- end homeware – and even thinks about taking its strategies to Mars

Simple and sculpted furniture is created from plastic and other materials that would otherwise be sent to landfill DDP IMAGES/CHRISTIAN KUDLER, PENTATONIC

INNOVATOR 45 “So, you’ll have something that used to be a chair leg and then

he idea of seeing smartphones, old becomes a DVDT cases and cigarette butts finding new life as chic, well-designed cushion. You homeware might seem, at a glance, like one of many eco-friendly design projects flooding the market. But start to see what if you could recycle these products infinitely? What if you can the circular become a market trader of the valuable commodity that is rubbish? This is how lifestyle brand Pentatonic economy in is changing the way we think about zero waste. motion” The company combines the environmental values of a circular, zero-waste economy with design values, which sees it make beautiful, ergonomic and smart products. The company is awash with ideas. Its philosophy is made real, thanks to economy. We only use what we its ability to re-recycle, while already have in the system and we innovations in plastic construction apply it and engineer it over and over means that it has created safe again with the ultimate goal of polymers that can be manipulated reducing waste. No one has done into felts and cushions. information for the way your anything like this in an engaging, On a day when UK headline news company operates? dynamic, cool, consumer-focused is an environmental issue – single use, Well, you tend to find more fashion way. Up until now, everyone has been virgin plastics such as cotton buds to waste in regions where there’s a high keen to ‘do the right thing’ in a potentially be banned within a year – turnover of high-street fashion, like haphazard fashion. Thanks to we meet up with Jamie Hall, he’s one the US and Europe [Pentatonic has technology, we’re now in a unique of the co-founders of Pentatonic. a ‘new clothes’ collection made of position to do things properly, as Here, he talks about geographical furnishings such as hangers and a consumer brand. We want to waste trends, the idea of taking this cushions plus other accessories made introduce an entirely new model thinking to Mars and the evils of MDF. entirely out of clothes]. The of usage in the consumer space, sophistication of through a design lens. THE RED BULLETIN: Your products varies from region to region because rely on a good supply of waste. the incentives vary. So, for example, Is this trend making an impact in Where do you source it from? there is almost zero glass waste in the design community? JAMIE HALL: It comes from waste Germany because there’s such a It’s getting there. Just this week, we management companies – the kind of prolific return scheme. As you’d were in Milan for Design Week and organisations that have contracts to expect, electronic waste in China and we saw how much more focus there is clear up local boroughs and large Japan is very high. For us, 98 per cent on and mindfulness, on industrial sites, and we access supply of what we use is European waste, how things are used and what chains. We work with small with the exception of our glassware, processes are used. In every consumer companies that specialise in which is made from predominantly industry, things are shifting – the UK dismantling one type of plastic, or Taiwanese smartphone screens. news today shows you that – and one colour of plastic, for example. It homeware and furniture design are all depends on what we want and How does the ‘circular economy’ absolutely no different in this regard. what we want it for. affect what you do? Our products are homeware and Your products have Unique On the subject of geographical accessories and we are trying hard to Identification numbers (UIDs) waste trends: how important is this accelerate the use of the circular attached to them, so consumers

46 INNOVATOR know their history. How important is it that objects tell a story to encourage the circular economy? Stories and the element of transparency are nice but I think it’s more a question of it being the right thing to do – people like to know where things come from. So we tell people that this table started life as a waste batch of aluminium at a scrap plant in Munich. There’s a bigger reason for us, though – UIDs allow the user to always know the value of that waste material. We see waste as a valuable commodity, and the way we make things means objects can always be re-recycled. In this way they become valuable, because you essentially become a material trader. Customers can also can trade back to us. This is when the UIDs start to take a really interesting turn – if you own a chair of ours, you can trade it back to us for the price listed on the UID. The return values will remain almost identical and as soon as we start to recycle over and over, we get products with multiple UIDs, so you’ll have something that used to be a chair leg and then becomes a cushion. You start to see the circular economy in motion and see how it functions.

What do you think about the idea of New life for old phones: connectivity, and merging the roles tumblers and bowls are of consumer and supplier? created using It’s everywhere. Look at everything in smartphone screens, our lives, it’s become more connected, predominantly from so this is an extension of this thinking. Taiwan We want to help you to recognise the value in what you spend – you don’t just buy something and it depreciates to zero straight away. Every part of it has an exchange value.

What do you think the biggest shift in consumer psychology needs to be? The single-use culture is widespread – littering, wastage, the current state of the oceans... there are a billion challenges for us, which is why it has to be transitional rather than

Inspired founders Johann Bödecker (left) and ex-

PENTATONIC brand marketer Jamie Hall

INNOVATOR 47 “If we do ever set up colonies on Mars, we’re going to have to operate with circularity” The chair, which is available in a range of colours, is repurposed from plastics. The bolt is created from six bottle overnight. But someone has to start it caps and launch it in a way that’s dynamic. We’re hoping others will follow.

What are your favourite pieces from your collection? I have a table and a fractured desk at home – it’s in pieces that you slot together. It’s made from a set from Dancing on Ice, which I like. We worked with suppliers, doing stage design for our pop-up shop in London last year and we used sets from London Fashion Week catwalks too.

You’ve invented an environmentally friendly polymer called Plyfix – could you tell us more about it? It’s a material made from a PET polymer, which is similar to water Waste products are prepared bottles and is an invention from one before being transformed having enough waste to come back as of our investors called Miniwiz. We into household objects products for everyone’s needs. use it on a wide scale, it has a mix of Companies like ours are essential to melting-point plastics and molecules spearhead and accelerate demand to so you can bend it and form its shape make that supply chain possible. while it retains a soft exterior. We use it to make chairs, for example. Rather Is there a conflict with shipping than having six things stuck together, globally and also wanting to limit you have a single piece that can be resin and sometimes formaldehyde. your ? recycled as easily as a plastic bottle. It also contains lacquer and paint – Yes, we’re aware of this and we try to that’s seven or eight different limit our footprint as much as Can you give some examples of polymers stuck together that can’t possible. We ship our products with recyclable products that do more be broken down. You can’t really no unnecessary packaging and we damage than we realise? restore or reuse it. hope for better solutions in the future. Most things are a hybrid of elements It’s difficult because although we are that are hard to separate, so it means Can your regenerative practice help relatively small, we’re still a business, they can’t be re-recycled. MDF is a us on a larger scale? so people say things like, ‘you shouldn’t good example. It’s cheap and it does a If we do ever set up colonies on Mars, use central heating’. That is a job, so from a functional level you say, we’re going to have to operate challenge but one that we’re trying to could argue it’s OK but from an with circularity, using and reusing. work around. We’re all trying our best.

environmental and structural level, You have to think conceptually about PENTATONIC it’s quite toxic – a mash of glue and material use: about regeneration and pentatonic.com

48 INNOVATOR Free Advertisement

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WINGSFORLIFEWORLDRUN.COM 16 UNITED KINGDOM COMMUNITY BUILDING

Bodyweight training builds functioning muscle, but this south London street gym uses it to build a functioning community

WORDS BY TOM GUISE PHOTOGRAPHY BY ADAM CORBETT

50 INNOVATOR Survival of the fittest

To save space, the gym goers added a third parallel bar. It birthed a new, super-fluid calisthenics system – Flow

INNOVATOR 51 here’s plenty of music in the Tmulticultural melting pot that is the south London district of Brixton. Follow the right rhythm and it’ll lead you to a street where something amazing is happening. Here, at an abandoned industrial site, members of the local community practise urban calisthenics reimagined for the minimal space and equipment they can afford. Spinning their bodies around the workout bars to the beat of hip hop and grime, their technique has caught the attention of street gyms across the globe. But seven years ago, this area was moving to a different beat.

On the night of August 7, 2011, the London riots were in full swing. “It was crazy. Cars were being crashed, it was raining and a helicopter swooped 10 metres to the floor, spraying into the air,” recalls Ben Wachenje of the mayhem that unfolded around him. “A stone’s throw from where I live, I could see everyone smashing the shutters of [electrical retailer] Currys, going in, taking all the goods. The police had blocked the road but weren’t doing anything. I was heading home when a group of youths walked towards me. I felt they were gonna do something to me when a car pulled up and the driver went to his boot. They started saying, ‘He’s got to be a fed,’ and moved around him, intimidating him, but not really doing anything. It distracted them from me. “When I got home, I thought, ‘These are guys that live round here; what they were doing was stupid.’ Gym membership But there’s also the other side – as the (from left to right): senior generation we haven’t done Nay, Diesel, Ben G, much for them. We can do better.” Fabio, Lex, Wayne, Ben wanted to engage the local Fred, Yellow, Deborah, youth, but, at 37 years old, wasn’t Twin and Phil sure how. “As an older person, you’re

52 INNOVATOR INNOVATOR 53 Wayne Beckford, who – with his younger brother Fred and friends Diesel and Ben Goldstein – helped create the Flow workout system

Terroll Lewis, the founder of Block WorkOut, turned his own troubled youth into a positive force for other young people

not necessarily in touch, so rather than come up with an initiative, it’s better to enrich what they’re already doing.” He needed inspiration.

A year later, Ben was jogging in what people think of as bodyweight ABOUT THE nearby Brockwell Park. “I’d ballooned training – we were doing crawls, PHOTOGRAPHER to 115kg and I’m just shy of 180cm sprints, carrying each other, London-based tall, so that’s pretty big. I’d tried partnering up with someone from a photographer Adam distance running and football, but different estate. They might be from Corbett has been following needed something different and got [nearby area] Peckham and you’re the Block WorkOut into the whole bodyweight training from Brixton, which wasn’t really community for two years, movement. I saw this group of happening at the time. I liked and is working on a book 20-30 guys training on the facilities. it and got involved from that day.” project documenting their With so many people using the Ben realised Block WorkOut was story. “The strength and equipment, I thought maybe there what he’d been looking for. “It’s a diversity in the community was an opportunity to build a bigger youth-led movement. Since 2012, was the first thing I calisthenics park. I decided to see if thousands of people have trained noticed when I met these guys wanted to get involved. with us. They’re exposed to people everyone at the Brixton I went up to one of them and said, they wouldn’t normally meet, and Street Gym. It’s a place for ‘Are you running this?’” together get through something anyone to come and train. The guy was Terroll Lewis, who difficult. The energy young men As well as pioneering the had started the group in 2010. It was a have can be hostile; you can’t calisthenics movement in response to a teenage life of running underestimate the impact a workout London over eight years, with local gangs that had landed him has – there’s respect. When I see their outreach projects in prison at the age of 19, wrongly anyone from Block WorkOut on the beyond the gym have been convicted of murder. In his cell he street, I say hello. It neutralises essential in creating a positive relationship began bodyweight training and, 11 potential beef. We’re a community.” within the wider months later, when his conviction was Over the next year, the group grew community.” overturned, he took home what he’d but the council was concerned about @adamcorbettphoto learned. He called the group Block damage to the park. “They’d say, WorkOut after the housing blocks ‘You’re mashing up the mud, beating they all lived in. up the equipment,’” recalls Ben. The “Terroll said to me, ‘Why don’t you crew were put in touch with Brixton train with us today?’ It was an intense Green, a community initiative focused workout – not just pull-ups, dips, on the redevelopment of nearby

54 INNOVATOR “The energy young men have can be hostile. You can’t under- estimate the impact a workout has – there’s respect”

Brunel University built a workshop on their campus for Diesel (pictured) to show them how Flow works

INNOVATOR 55 Somerleyton Road. “They told us, ‘Between now and when the road gets demolished, providing you guys give affordable fitness, we’ll let you have some space.’ That’s how we got the street gym.” Excitement was quickly tempered by reality. “In 2013, when I saw the site, I was worried,” says Ben. “Terroll had massive ambitions for the gym and it was basically a loading bay. You had a bit of shelter where lorries would back in, there was the compound around it, and inside was a kitchen. I drew up some plans and we stripped out the old pipework, adding climbing frames.” With just £5,000 raised by a local councillor, and £2,000 of their own money, the group had to be inventive, using hammers and tyres as weights. These proved ideal as rookie equipment. “It was key to have exercises that someone who is 140kg would feel awesome doing. Ask them to do ten pull-ups, they’ll do half a pull-up, rip some muscles, be injured and not want to come back. Tell them to flip a tyre, they’ll flip it better than anyone else in the gym, because they’re used to moving a big weight. Most gyms are based on the Schwarzenegger philosophy – hypertrophy, damaging muscles so they grow back bigger. What we do is about strength and control – balance, coordination, rhythm.”

For 37-year-old Lex Bwalya, body strength and control have a deeper meaning. “In 2011, Strep A shut down my organs. When I came out of the coma, they amputated all my toes and the ball joint of the left foot. Part of my quad had died, it’s never coming Ben Wachenje AKA back. Standing on two feet was a ‘Brother Ben’ – “My fallacy,” she says. “The National motivation was to guide Health Service rehab you enough to young people, but these get to the toilet. That wasn’t enough. guys helped me extend “At the gym I started using the my life” triple bars. I’d go to my surgeon and he was like: ‘Whatever you’re doing, please just keep doing it. You shouldn’t even be walking.’ Every step is pain, but calisthenics works on my neural pathways. It’s pain management, because if I don’t work out, my body thinks everything is painful.” Today, Lex coaches. “When people can’t do something, I say: ‘Are you going to let the woman with no toes jog faster than you?’ I sometimes get the little foot out. They think: ‘OK,

56 INNOVATOR she has no toes and dead quad muscles, but can do that. I’m playing.’ No matter your issues, you can find a way around it.”

The triple parallel bars also gave rise to another breakthrough. “I’d put it in as a space-saving design, but what people did with it was just different. Built in a disused They started treating the three bars loading bay, the like a surface to be on top of or gym is scheduled below,” Says Ben. “There’s always for demolition been moves – muscle-ups, handstands, dips, planches – but they created artistic transitions, a constant stream of movement that looks like to Brunel University for workshops. breakdancing, especially when it’s on “Work your There’s a good future for them.” beat. I’m talking about Flow.” The future for the street gym is less Ben credits one of the gym regulars, clear. “It’s gonna be demolished, we Wayne Beckford, with the creation of body and it were told that from the get-go,” say many of Flow’s moves but its DNA Ben. “Repairs are needed, but we comes from everyone who tackles helps the could invest in the building only to those triple bars, and now, thanks to find we’re out next week. We’ve lived YouTube, it has drawn proponents mind – in limbo for nearly four years.” from around the world. “A lot of Ben believes the gym is vital for moves that have gone global literally the local youth. “Sports, fitness and came from these guys thinking: ‘How there’s no music are some of the only ways we can we go from this to this?’ And they can forge communities now, because get frustrated because nobody gives separation we don’t have the spaces that used to them the credit. People see the exist: pub culture, youth centres, moves, then copy them and go win between libraries. People need to learn how to tournaments. But the hard bit is to exchange ideas and understand create it from nothing, and that’s other perspectives in a way you can what they do over and over again.” the two” only really do in person. There has been some positive We train outdoors, so we’re always recognition. “A lot of brands are trying connected and getting vitamin D to figure out ways to tag onto it in an from the sun. Work your body and it authentic way,” says Ben. “And the helps the mind – there’s no guys that do Flow have been invited separation between the two. And when young people train with us they achieve something tangible – a physical gain based on work put in. That’s a lesson for life: if I work hard at something, I can be successful.”

Ben also says the gym has rescued him. “If you’re an older person training alongside young people, it keeps you young. Those guys have extended my life. I was medically obese. It’s a dark place that’s hard to get out of. Today, I’m 82kg. I’m not fanatical about my weight, I don’t sculpt my body, I’m more interested in my heart. I just flip tyres, smash hammers and have fun training.”

Find out more about the Lex Bwalya on the Brixton Street Gym or help support triple bars. “If I miss them at blockworkoutfdn.org a week I stiffen up, Follow Ben Wachenje at @aka_bro_ben I get weaker” and Terroll Lewis at @terrolllewis on Instagram

INNOVATOR 57 17-22 INTERNATIONAL INSPIRATION

These six heroes under 26 from the field of social innovation reveal their secrets of success: how they’ve turned simple ideas into enterprises that change the lives of thousands, why businesses with a social impact are the future and what you can learn from their approach to get your own project off the ground

WORDS BY LEA WIESER Six ILLUSTRATIONS BY BAUER & HOFMANN young people change DAN HIPKIN the future

58 INNOVATOR Bonnie’s social enterprise is empowering marginalised women worldwide

Bonnie Why is it important to be socially committed? Chiu 24 Because of urgent issues confronting humanity, from Hong Kong When did you realise that it to gender Bonnie founded Lensational, a social was time to take action? inequality – and it is up to our enterprise that empowers A few days before International generation to do something. Women’s Day 2013 (8 March), Starting and scaling a new social marginalised women from the I got feedback from a professor initiative has never been so easy. developing world through saying that I should abandon the In social entrepreneurship, you photography. The goal is to provide idea of Lensational as he thought can take risks and define new it wouldn’t go anywhere. I thought paradigms that you couldn’t do women with a voice and a source of that he was right. However, on within a predefined structure. income. Founded in 2013, Lensational Women’s Day, I was scrolling has worked with more than 600 down my Facebook newsfeed and Any advice on how to go found inspiring stories of ordinary about setting up a socially women from 15 countries. Bonnie, people doing things to achieve impactful project? who made it on to Forbes’ 30 Under gender equality. I saw a graphic Consider what makes you feel 30 Social Entrepreneurs list last year, with three women and the African sad, angry and excited. proverb: ‘If you want to go fast, go Thinking critically about those is from Hong Kong but is based in alone; if you want to go far, go three emotions helps you find London, where she serves as the together.’ For me, that was a your sense of purpose. managing director of The Social moment of enlightenment. lensational.org Investment Consultancy, advising clients from UNICEF to Kettle

INNOVATOR 59 Sade’s venture addresses the lack of social mobility and diversity in leadership roles for young people

What’s your best advice for someone who’d like to create something impactful? If you truly believe in something, go and push it. But in order to do so, you need a strong support Sade network. I met a lot of my partners, trustees and supporters through the most random Brown 25 What was the first step experiences, such as meeting towards turning your them on buses or tubes. I believe United Kingdom idea into reality? that if you’re truly passionate There’s a saying: ‘When Back in 2016, I decided to about something, it shows. So life gives you lemons, talk to people and see if they – be interested in people, while thought my idea would work. being interesting yourself. make lemonade.’ After I went through my address too many sour lemons in list and asked myself who had What was the best advice life, Sade created been inspirational to me in my you were given by a mentor? career, who had helped me, and ‘Own your narrative.’ Don’t tell London-based social who would truly believe in my the story that you think people enterprise Sour Lemons, venture. Then I arranged to meet want to hear. When I first started offering leadership up with those people. I started out and was visiting institutions, out with an idea but didn’t know I thought that I had to talk and training programmes how the final product would turn dress a certain way. Then I for disadvantaged out. Usually, people come up realised I was stripping away my young people with the product first and then cultural identity. I understand get people on board. But now that it’s my diversity that I was doing it in reverse, which makes me brilliant. actually helped me a lot. sourlemons.co.uk

60 INNOVATOR Starting his app as a project at university in 2016, Zafer’s app has become a learning tool for over 30,000 children with special needs

Where did you find the courage to start a business at the young age of 21? When I first started out, I didn’t do it for the sake of creating a business, I felt a strong desire to help my brother. Only then did I realise my idea had great potential to help others – Otsimo grew organically into a business. Our mission now is to democratise special education with the help of technology.

Any useful advice for someone who’d like to Zafer build a social enterprise? Setting up a project with social impact is definitely not easy – Elçik 23 actually, I think it is twice as hard as building a ‘normal’ business or Turkey an NGO. You are creating When Zafer noticed the something that needs to have an effect on lots of lives and be only thing that captured accessible, plus you have to find his autistic brother’s a viable business model for it. attention for any time was My advice is to focus on the impact first but to not lose sight his smartphone, he built a of the business model. gaming app, hoping to enhance his brother’s How has Otsimo changed you on a personal level? cognitive skills. His project It has changed me a lot. I’ve is now Otsimo, a free, become more grounded and Turkey-based educational more empathetic towards others – not only towards autistic gaming app, helping more children or those with than 30,000 children with special needs, but I’ve become learning disorders and more sensitive to everyone. I think everything should start special needs to improve with empathy. cognitive learning otsimo.com

INNOVATOR 61 Creating a business with a purpose was Thato’s dream: her durable schoolbags are repurposed from plastic bags

Thato 24 Kgatlhanye South Africa Thato founded South- Africa based social enterprise Rethaka, which focuses on sustainable manufacturing and waste How did Red Bull Amaphiko management. Her contribute to the success of your project? Repurpose Schoolbags, It has been a key partner, made from recycled especially from a storytelling plastic bags and fitted point of view. I think the important role that Red Bull with a solar panel, help Amaphiko has played is being children to stay safe on able to give us a platform where their way home from the story can be shared and where people can make school and study at meaningful connections with the night. Recognised for its work we do, whether it’s being innovation by Bill Gates, inspired by it or whether it’s triggering people to think about the project has earned how they can be active citizens. awards such as the ELLE International Impact If you could start again, what Was there a moment – an would you do differently? Award and the SAB epiphany – that made you I wouldn’t Say I’d do anything Foundation Social realise that it was time to act? differently, but when you declare Innovation Award I got to a point in my life where that you are going to change the I had to decide on a career. The world, the most important thing way I was thinking was: ‘Can is to frame your vision in your I build a business that serves own way and define what people while being profitable, making a difference is to you. and with profit coming as a Sometimes, that’s not going to consequence of doing good?’ align with other people’s That has been the driver of why versions. I would have it down to I’m in this kind of work. It was clearly defining the impact you not necessarily an epiphany but want to make and how you plan I felt a need to build a new breed to make that difference. Then of business, where we can see you can go out and make sure how our work serves people that everything you do aligns while we are also serving with that vision. the business itself. rethakafoundation.org

62 INNOVATOR Aditya dropped out of Stanford University to build an app that helps farmers sell their produce

Aditya Agarwalla

24 You were 22 when you founded Kisan Network – India where did you find the Two years ago, Aditya courage to start a business at such a young age? dropped out of university, When I was thinking about hoping to revolutionise leaving school halfway through, the Indian agricultural there was an important question which I approached peers and Once you’ve achieved market. Back in New Delhi parents with: ‘What’s the worst something, do you celebrate and with support from that could happen?’ Usually, your success or do you move Y-Combinator, he built whenever you’re trying to straight on to the next thing? evaluate the pros and cons of a That’s something I struggle with Kisan Network, an online decision, you ask yourself, ‘What’s a lot. When you start from zero, marketplace that the best thing that could happen?’ you’re always trying to grow. connects small farmers However, when you’re young, the Even when we wrap up a good stakes are pretty low. If you can quarter, my mind is already on with businesses across get by financially and take care of the next issue, which is how it India via an app. By yourself, then the next question should be. I think it’s important looking after their supply is, ‘Is there anything else that I’m to take some time off to be happy worried about happening?’ I without allowing yourself to get chains, Aditya, who is one couldn’t come up with anything too content. It would be fatal if of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 that was scaring me. I took the at any stage you thought that Social Entrepreneurs, attitude that you have to take the what you had done was enough. plunge and if it doesn’t work out, As a founder, you end up helps farmers sell their you can always go back to what spending a lot of time analysing produce directly by you were doing before. and figuring out where you went cutting out middlemen wrong, so we owe it to ourselves to do the same when we do who would traditionally something right. set unfair prices kisannetwork.com

INNOVATOR 63 The Flybot, a low- cost drone to carry out critical missions, is only one of Mihir’s technical inventions

build stuff because you think it’s cool, and the other one is to focus on the impact and be mindful of the bigger picture. But I think the better way to do it is to travel around the world and be active. Mihir 18 It’s very easy to go about our lives, passively thinking that things are relatively good, but it’s Garimella a lot more helpful and impactful if you understand that the world United States is as good as it is today because Mihir likes building things people in the past have identified problems and worked hard to – by this he means solve them. Things are still not autonomous drones What does it take to make perfect so there’s work to do. which are used to solve an impact? The cool thing about living in What’s the biggest problem real-life problems, such 2018 is that it’s easier than ever our world is facing now? as inspecting nuclear to gain access to people and Inequality of life. To give you an power plants for information – and ultimately to example, my grandparents live in start a project. So, a high-school India and there are so many leakages. His FlyBot, a kid like me from Pittsburgh can people with no place to live, or tiny, low-cost robot, flies access anybody on the planet. access to clean drinking water or into dangerous spaces to The real barrier is coming up food. Thanks to technology, with a good idea. things are pretty good in certain carry out missions parts of the world, but that’s not without a pilot. Winning How do you come up with broadly true. All the technology the 2014 Google Science a good idea? we have and all the innovations I don’t think my path was can make it feel as if we live in a Award for his work, the necessarily the best one, because special time and that the world is Stanford Unviersity I started with a solution and got good, but that’s not true for student continues to lucky in that it roughly solved everybody. I think the biggest problems that real people were problem is that this gap is work on tech solutions facing. I’d say there are two increasing. that make an impact approaches: one is what I did, to mihir.garimella.io

64 INNOVATOR Changemakers are everywhere if you know where to look. Ashoka does.

Discover Ashoka’s worldwide network. For 35 years, Ashoka has found exceptional innovators and supported them to grow their ideas into transformative social progress. This year’s Ashoka Fellows come from over 60 countries and join our living lab of 3,500 Fellows who are lifelong innovators for the public, collaborating with partners in business and civil society to advance new ideas. Together, they inspire a brighter future: one where each of us looks inside ourselves and sees a changemaker. ashoka.org

Everyone A Changemaker™ SOCIAL

23BRAZIL ECO CRAFTS

What started as a therapeutic hobby has become a successful business for Ariane Santos Making waste notable

Badu Design transforms textiles from landfill into sustainable products. But that’s not all. With her business, founder Ariane Santos generates income for socially When she fell into depression a fellow at the Red Bull Amaphiko after the loss of her grandmother, Academy 2017 in São Paulo, vulnerable people – Ariane Santos cared for her realised she could convert her during her last two years – the personal trauma into a business social entrepreneur decided she opportunity, so she set up needed to do something for Badu Design. herself, to rebuild her life. Relying on the knowledge she Picking up her former college had acquired while working at a hobby, making fabric covered non-profit organisation in her notebooks, felt like a form of home town of Curitiba, south of therapy. It helped her to focus and Brazil, and for a company’s feel calm. As an experiment, marketing department, she looked Ariane took ten of her notebooks into ways of helping her start-up to a local stationery shop and become more professional. asked if they could sell them. To The first step was to teach her surprise, they sold out in three women how to make record time. That’s when Ariane, notebooks and other handmade

66 INNOVATOR INNOVATOR

INSIDER TIP: Create opportunities On her epiphany, Ariane says, “A lady arrived at our office with a patchwork bag full of offcuts and asked if we wanted to use the material. I thought ‘wait, if a seamstress generates this volume of material in a week, how much does the industry items. After running out of cash PEOPLE POWER generate?’ I did some to continue production, Ariane The start-up has brought about positive research and was resorted to scraps and textile change to the lives of vulnerable people. Ariane also runs art and craft amazed by how much waste; this would soon become workshops and has held personal the most important asset in her empowerment sessions, too is wasted. Always project. Every year, 170,000 tons follow up on those of textile waste is disposed of in Brazil, of which only 36,000 chance moments.” actually gets recycled. According to Ariane: “Companies do not know what to do with textile waste. I mentioned to a reporter that I was only working with waste and several companies called me to offer their leftovers.” Today, 51 people work for Ariane’s start-up. Among them are many mothers of autistic children, immigrants and refugees. Asked for the reason, she feels it’s crucial to incorporate this social aspect into her business. The 39-year-old says that she can relate to their struggle because she also felt excluded from society when she had to nurse her grandmother. This kept her from being able to hold down a job and have a normal life. “My professional challenge is to raise awareness and value LANYARD FROM TEXTILE WASTE Originally produced for Red Bull Amaphiko, the textile waste,” Ariane says. “But woven textile lanyard can be used as a necklace, above all, I want to empower hair accessory, luggage handle or... whatever you GUTTER SWELL

FELIPE GABRIEL, FABIO PIVA/RED BULL CONTENT POOL those we train and work with.” like. The lanyards were made by one of Badu badudesign.com.br Design’s art therapy groups for mothers

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24INDONESIA ECO ACTIVISM

Not only bottles and plastic bags but dead animals were also found polluting the river, which is a source of drinking water for up to How to 15 million people through the project’s five most crucial steps, revealing change how you can change a whole country’s mindset with a the world simple campaign. 1. Think Big with a “In the summer of 2016, we went down the Mississippi River in a boat made from crazy recycled materials to increase awareness of the micro Growing up in Bali, plastics problem. Then we idea Indonesia, Gary Bencheghib, found out about the Citarum 23, and his brother Sam, 20, and decided to do a similar became aware of the ocean’s trip. Our parents were really Last August, two plastic problem first hand. against it, obviously, because “As kids, we would go surfing of the highly toxic chemicals brothers set out to and find ourselves paddling in the water. But they in a sea of plastic,” he says. couldn’t stop us. When it paddle down the “So we started cleaning our comes to the environment, world’s most local beaches on a weekly you have to think big. No idea basis.” Last August, the is too crazy, we’re running polluted river in Bencheghibs took their out of time. In 2050, there Java, equipped with passion for will be more plastics than fish to a new level. They paddled in the ocean and more than only a camera and down the world’s most 80 per cent of it comes from polluted river, the Citarum, rivers and . The goal two kayaks made on Bali’s neighbouring island of our campaign was to make out of plastic of Java. Their kayaks were people understand that we made of plastic bottles and have to stop plastic waste at bottles. Indonesia’s they documented their two- the source, before it gets out president was so week trip to raise awareness into the open sea.” of the issue. Their plan impressed by their worked. After their videos went viral, Indonesia’s 2. Find Allies venture that he president Joko Widodo “If you do a project outside vowed to clean contacted them and publicly familiar territory, make sure promised get the water of the to arrive prepared. Although up the river Citarum drinkable within we grew up in Indonesia, seven years. Here, Gary we’re still two white expats. Bencheghib, now a film- Since we didn’t want to be maker in New York, talks us intruders, we reached out

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Sam Bencheghib, 20, (left) and his brother Gary, 23, made their kayaks from bottles taken from the Citarum river

The kayaks attracted a lot of attention from those who live on the banks of the river. The YouTube videos of their journey quickly went viral FLORIAN OBKIRCHER PHOTOS BY MAKE A CHANGE WORLD

INNOVATOR 69 SOCIAL

to local environmental organisations and the amount of support they offered us was overwhelming. They helped with all the official permission we needed, they gave us tips on how to protect ourselves (we’d use ethyl alcohol constantly to wash ourselves) and suggested where we could sleep (we stayed at people’s houses along the river). Finding allies before actually setting out on an expedition is absolutely crucial.”

3. Spread Positivity “Our videos are always solution oriented. People want to be inspired, everyone’s tired of seeing so much negativity on social media, so focusing on the positive element is always a winner. For one video, I followed a friend wearing every single piece of trash he created on his body for a month. That project got 250 million views, more than the season finale of Breaking Bad. Gary documented the journey: the This was a huge eye-opener – brothers took their to see the power of social message to those media – but also the power of who live by the river, creating unusual content. visiting schools and The idea of using kayaks made communities out of plastic bottles to paddle down the world’s most polluted river was all about coming up with new angles to tackle old problems. If you create content for your project, make sure to focus on the positive and don’t point fingers.”

4. Get the Message Out “Indonesia is one of the top five social media markets in the world. That alone helped our campaign a lot. Our videos went viral on Facebook and via WhatsApp groups PHOTOS MAKE BY A CHANGE WORLD instantly. It went from two

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Before the project started, the brothers took exploratory trips down the river with wellies and masks. Gary developed a sinus infection for a couple of months from breathing the toxic fumes

The kayaks were made from water guys going down this river to through with the clean-up bottles on a frame of bamboo a national discussion. Two plan, we’re involved in the weeks after our expedition, documentation of the project. I got a message from the Our two-week awareness Drone footage shows Indonesian minister of the campaign has now turned the extent of the environment to discuss an into a seven-year job for the problem: waste has emergency clean-up plan. Not two of us, working with the gathered here since long after, president Joko Indonesian authorities to the 1980s, eventually Widodo offered us an monitor what’s going on. We flowing out to sea interview in which – on- also need to keep on pushing and contributing to ocean pollution camera – he promised to clean so they don’t lose interest. We up the river within seven want to launch local projects years and make the water on waste management, on drinkable again. I’m so how to turn plastic found in pleased to see that, as a result the river into valuable items. of our simple idea, the whole On the surface, the project country, including the might seem to be a done deal military and several NGOs, now we have the president’s has come together, taking promise of commitment, but pride in the clean-up process.” in fact, it’s only the beginning. Because if you persist, one adventure inspires the next.” 5. Be Persistent “To ensure that the Follow the Bencheghib brothers’ Indonesian government goes projects on makeachange.world

INNOVATOR 71 25 ITALY/UNITED KINGDOM FOOD WASTE REDUCTION PER-ANDERS JÖRGENSEN

72 INNOVATOR Massimo Bottura, voted the number one chef in the world in 2016, is on a social mission: he turns food waste into three-course meals and serves them for free to society’s most vulnerable members. We visited the Italian’s community kitchen in London

WORDS BY RUTH MORGAN Food for the soul

He may be a famous chef but Massimo Bottura is also the name behind a global enterprise to save waste and feed the vulnerable

INNOVATOR 73 combat some shocking stats: one third of all food we produce is wasted, and around 815 million people worldwide are affected by food insecurity. As a giant in the restaurant industry, Massimo decided to do something about it. He felt passionate enough to have ‘No more excuses’ tattooed on his right arm. The 55-year-old chef from Modena has made it his mission to challenge the ease with which we discard things – whether that’s produce, places or even people. How? “[By making] something valuable out of something that might be seen as having no value at all.” Massimo’s Refettorio network, funded by private donations and corporate partners, now has permanent bases in Milan, Rio, Paris and here in London, and adds value t lunchtime on a drizzly Tuesday in to food destined for the dustbin. He Athe London borough of Kensington, enlists the help of culinary greats to a young opera singer stands on stage. work as guest chefs in the Refettorios She’s about to sing a number from (which means ‘refectory’ in Italian, L’Italiana in Algeri about a woman, chosen for its link to the Latin Isabella, who finds herself meaning ‘to restore’) and create shipwrecked and surrounded by delicious dishes. But food is only part pirates – but, the singer says, with a of the story. The Refettorios are set up knowing smile, Isabella is certain she in spaces rescued from closure or can tame these men. Amid warm neglect. In Milan, for example, laughter from the mostly male Refettorio Ambrosiano is housed in audience, she begins to sing, flooding an abandoned theatre, now the large, beautifully decorated hall repurposed. It’s linked to the third “The with music. Diners continue to eat as element in the chef’s vision: Italian they listen while waitresses scurry hospitality. It encourages those gesture between the tables, clearing plates, experiencing food insecurity – the refilling water jugs; a delicious smell homeless, the elderly, refugees, those of cooking permeates the air. with mental health problems – to sit of sitting This isn’t a scene from a west- down and enjoy a meal served to London restaurant; it’s an average day them at their table, in beautiful down to a at Refettorio Felix, a unique surroundings. “The gesture of sitting community project that’s giving some down to a meal and breaking bread of the most vulnerable people in this together,” says Massimo, “is the first meal and area access to free or heavily- step towards rebuilding dignity and subsidised, quality meals. What’s creating community.” breaking even more surprising is that the When Refettorio Felix launched in produce that makes up their three- June 2017, for six weeks a culinary bread course lunches would otherwise be giant such as Michel Roux Jr or Alain thrown away. Refettorio Felix is a Ducasse took over the small kitchen neat solution to the interlinking here every day. Now a guest chef together problems of food waste, food comes in once every two or three insecurity and social inclusion, is the first replacing the preconceptions these issues often conjure – discarded step leftovers, long queues, run-down surroundings – with a much more modern vision. One that doesn’t towards scrimp on quality, dignity or – to use a favourite word of the Italian behind rebuilding all this – beauty. Three-Michelin-star chef Massimo Bottura founded not-for-profit dignity” organisation Food for Soul in 2016, to

74 INNOVATOR weeks to take on the culinary challenge of creating a three-course lunch from whatever produce gets dropped off by surplus food charity The Felix Project. “Chefs keep coming,” says Zoe McIntyre, Refettorio Felix’s Network and Events Coordinator. “Brett Graham from (two Michelin-star London restaurant) The Ledbury, comes every month or sends some of his team. He likes it here as you can see the direct impact of your skill. Chefs are used to having very high-quality ingredients, ordered to fit their requirements. It’s an eye-opener for them.” The term ‘food waste’, Zoe says, often creates visions of ‘carrot ends, leftovers’. But the produce – donated by supermarkets and cafes – is high quality. “It blew me away,” says Faith MacArthur, owner of Eat, a café chain with more than 200 UK outlets, who volunteers in the kitchen. “We get free-range, grass-fed, rare-breed pork, foraged wild garlic… I forget we’re dealing with food waste.” When guest chefs aren’t in the kitchen, it’s the turn of regular chefs Clio Melvin and Naseem Khalifa. As it’s a drop-in centre, the chefs never know how many people they’ll be Appreciative lunchtime From left: sous chef Takahiko feeding. They cater for 60, but that diners greet and applaud Kondo, Massimo and helpers can rise to 100. Today they look busy Massimo at the Refettorio celebrate after their first but calm as they move around each Ambrosiana, a project set up service at Refettorio Felix other in a well-practised dance. Clio in the Greco area of Milan wipes down each plate with a pristine white cloth before it goes out, just as a chef would in a Michelin-star kitchen. “I love using surplus waste – it allows us to be really creative,” says Clio, a fresh-faced 30-year-old who has been here since shortly after the Refettorio opened. “I love the atmosphere, the people. The van arrives at 7.30am and we have to make something from nothing.” Clio describes the day a woman turned up with ‘loads of unplucked pheasants’, presenting the chefs with a test in the three hours they had to create a meal. “No two days are the same,” she says. “I hope this is the future of catering. Restaurants waste so much food. Chefs who have cooked here have learned something to take back to their kitchens.” Today’s menu consists of vegetable broth, followed by either fish pie or Climate change aubergine and carrot patties with has had a marked seasonal vegetables, then poached effectSonam on life Wangchuk for has been apples, vanilla ice cream and toasted farmersan instrumental in the force in the muffin crumbs. The Refettorio’s main Ladakhcreation region of the ice stupa

PER-ANDERS JÖRGENSEN, SIMON JOHN OWEN RED PHOTOGRAPHIC hall is buzzing – around 60 people have come to eat. Four local elderly

INNOVATOR 75 Chefs and assistants love the Climate change challenge of producing high- has had a marked quality meals from whatever effect on life for ingredients have been farmers in the provided by food charities Ladakh region on any given day

76 INNOVATOR “There’s women sit, laughing loudly. There are always exuberant actress who volunteers several lone men, some with large here every week, glides between the backpacks and roll-mats, reading tables. “I know what I’m doing – us newspapers. Several strike up happiness actresses have spent so long conversations as they eat – discussing waitressing!” she laughs. “I love it the food or the latest royal baby. The in the here. There’s something magical homeless make up around 60 per cent about it. And something lovely about of the centre’s visitors, alongside room. I love serving someone, offering a choice. those with mental health issues and It’s respectful.” There are two other the elderly. “The idea is to have a mix waitresses volunteering today, Molly of people,” says Zoe. “The older the idea Tait-Hyland, a journalist and history women have a good effect on some student, and Valerie Carde, a French of the rough sleeping men. And the that food resident who lives close by. All are positive feel of this beautiful regulars now. “There’s always environment is so evident.” happiness in the room,” says Molly. St Cuthbert’s has operated as a isn’t just “That sounds cheesy, but it’s true. drop-in centre for over 25 years, and I love the idea here that food isn’t still offers amenities such as showers fuel but a just fuel but a joyful thing to be and computers. But what was a run- shared. I really feel the care the down church hall is unrecognisable to joyful thing chefs take over the meals. People those who knew it before Food for enjoy it. You see a lot of the same Soul partnered with British interior people every week.” designer Ilse Crawford, designer of to be One such regular is affable New York’s Soho House. The nine- octogenarian Owen Murphy. “Here, metre-high ceiling of this church hall shared” even if people are down on their luck, is now adorned with oversized they have a good attitude,” he says. lampshades hung at different heights, “And I imagine that’s thanks to the casting the room in soft yellow light. surroundings. I live on my own and The walls and ceiling are painted a this is a great place to socialise. cornflower blue that makes the lofty Because I cook for myself, it’s also a sensible idea nutrition-wise to eat one hot meal that’s prepared for me every week. It makes such a difference to know I can come here.” Towards the end of lunch, the opera singer – a volunteer – is singing Happy Birthday to a grinning, elderly woman named Jenny. Staff and volunteers watch as they sit and eat together. Today has been another success in a long line of successes. Worldwide, the Food for Soul project has already saved more than 45 tonnes of food, and served 450,000 dishes to over 150,000 people. Refettorio sites in the US will be announced later this year, and more The interior at will follow. The model is clearly London’s needed – not only because of its Refettorio is a effectiveness in combatting food welcoming, open and light-filled waste and food insecurity, but for its space dignified, holistic approach. “The art, design and architecture are as key to the project as the best chefs,” Massimo told foodism.co.uk. “People don’t live space feel cosy. There are plants, and from just bread alone, they live for a soft seating area which adds to the something much deeper.” homely feel. “The transformation was incredible,” says Operations Manager Donating £10 helps Refettorio offer a Nick Haines, who’s worked here for vulnerable person: breakfast, a warm 16 years. “It was dowdy and dusty. three-course lunch, a shower, clean Now it’s a vibrant, positive place to be.” clothes and dedicated therapeutic Everyone here today seems good support to help them get back on their feet. You can donate via the website ANGELO DAL BÓ, SIMON JOHN OWEN RED PHOTOGRAPHIC natured, thanking the waiting staff as they’re served. Paddy Navin, an refettoriofelix.com

INNOVATOR 77 South Africa is a hotbed of social entrepreneurship SouthSpotlight on Africa

Meet eight of the country’s most impressive trailblazers who tackle

26-33 SOUTH AFRICA GRASSROOTS INNOVATION GETTY IMAGES

78 INNOVATOR South Africa

problems in their communities with simple but genius ideas

WORDS BY ROFHIWA MANETA

INNOVATOR 79 Intro South Africa has always been a country inspired by hope. Since 1994 – when former ANC president Nelson Mandela ushered in the rainbow nation – the country has been one that’s dedicated to change. Its entrepreneurs are no different. A recent study revealed that just under a million South Africans ‘are involved with a social entrepreneurship activity in the start-up phase’. This isn’t surprising. The country’s social landscape calls for a different kind of entrepreneur.

According to statistics, South Africa has an unemployment rate of 26.7 per cent, ranking 14th in the list of countries with the highest unemployment rates in the world. It also ranks as one of the most dangerous countries to live in. Add an increasing inequality gap into the mix and you have, on paper, what seems to be a country on the brink of collapse. But where others see problems, these changemakers see solutions and, slowly but surely, socially focused entrepreneurship is becoming the norm.

This is why Red Bull Amaphiko set up its very first Academy in Cape Town in 2014. The platform hosts a ten-day programme that mentors and offers business support to 16 social entrepreneurs every two years. Red Bull Amaphiko has unearthed and supports some of the country’s most promising and innovative changemakers. Here are eight entrepreneurs tackling some of the country’s biggest issues

80 INNOVATOR Zakheni Ngubo Renshia Manuel Syafunda, Johannesburg GrowBox, Cape Town Meet the young innovator who’s What started as a back-yard garden for Renshia Manuel working on revolutionising South has now blossomed into a full-on business, tackling Africa’s school system food insecurity in South Africa

A 2016 study shows that over 40 per cent of students in South Africa drop out before finishing high school. Johannesburg-based social entrepreneur Zakheni Ngubo is on a mission to change this. In 2002, when he was 17 and in Grade 11, his maths teacher fell ill and wasn’t replaced. His struggle mirrors that of millions of students across the country. His social enterprise, Syafunda, partners with teachers to make easy-to- When Renshia Manuel Above The boxes are made by locals, giving understand digital content lost her job as a librarian in work to those living in a halfway house (videos, e-books, past exam 2014, she started growing papers and online textbooks) vegetables in her garden to Below Renshia is delighted to expand her for high-school students. feed her four kids. She soon business and help more of the community “We’ve installed servers realised she was onto with a one-kilometre radius something. Her home town, around schools and libraries Hanover Park, is a densely across the country. Anyone populated township within the radius can blighted by gangs, and the download free educational majority of her community material. You don’t need the has no access to land to internet or data, just a grow their own food. phone with WiFi capability,” GrowBox (Renshia’s says Zakheni. social enterprise) “provides The portal currently by teaching offers maths, science, people how to grow their financial literacy and IT own food,” she says. The study material. Students can GrowBox is a small wooden also take online tests, the box that comes with results of which are vegetable seedlings, captured by the website and compost and gardening sells vegetable seedlings and the information used to pair tools. It allows people in fresh produce to private them with a university cramped or overpopulated companies and farmers. To bursary programme. conditions to grow their date, she’s taught 168 Since founding the business own food – an invaluable people how to cultivate their in 2014, Syafunda has skill considering that more grow box and that number reached more than 80,000 than 30 million people in is set to increase now that students, according to the country live below the she’s secured a piece of land Zhakheni. “We’re in 71 poverty line and can’t afford to run the business from. schools but that number to buy food every day. “Running GrowBox from could rise to 150 by the Renshia works with ex- my home has been end of the year.” offenders and recovering frustrating,” she says. “I’m drug addicts at a nearby glad we’re expanding now.

PHILIPP SCHUSTER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, LUKE DANIEL/RED BULL CONTENT POOL(3) halfway house to help build We will be able to reach the grow boxes and also more people.”

INNOVATOR 81 Palesa Mahlatji Wandisile Nqeketho Yakh’iphupha, Eastern Cape 18 Gangster Museum, Cape Town Palesa Mahlatji offers computer skills 18 Gangster Museum is a pop-up and access to technology to museum that teams up with underresourced communities ex-offenders to de-glamourise gang life

When Palesa Mahlatji finished high school and started looking for a college, she was presented with a problem. “I finished matriculation [12th grade] and started looking for a job because I couldn’t afford to study,” says Palesa. “I took my CV to companies and was told to email it instead. The problem was, I couldn’t use a computer. I’d never used one in my life: we didn’t have one at home or at school. It got me thinking: ‘how many people Above The museum has helped lose out on potential jobs or to take away the glamour of opportunities because of gang culture this problem?’” As it stands, Left The exhibition is proving over 400 schools in the popular with locals and tourists alike Eastern Cape are classified as mud schools – mud shacks with no proper infrastructure. Palesa aimed to find a solution. gangsters and has hosted In 2015, she quit her job eight exhibitions. as a banker, sold her car and “We had an ex-inmate started Yakh’iphupha – a give a talk. He’d been in social enterprise that “I want to live in a gang- prison for four years for provides access to free society,” says social armed robbery, theft and technology and computer entrepreneur Wandisile attempted murder but he’s skills to rural and semi- Nqeketho. “I don’t want to turned his life around since urban communities. Palesa’s live in a place where this is his release. He’s now at enterprise offers accredited presented as a way of life to university – his story serves courses in entrepreneurship kids living in the townships.” as a cautionary tale.” and computer literacy. Wandisile is the founder Khayelitsha, where Palesa has trained over of 18 Gangster Museum – Wandisile lives, recorded 800 people and works with a social enterprise that 176 murders and 259 cases five schools across the collaborates with gangsters of attempted murder in Eastern Cape (she hopes to and ex-offenders. The 2017. Growing up in the reach 120 by the end of next museum is hosted inside township, the 28-year-old year). She’s also developed a shipping container and social entrepreneur says a portable, solar-powered features immersive text the threat of violence was computer lab so she can and videos. always looming. He believes now travel around her home The tours are hosted by it’s everyone’s responsibility town offering computer ex-offenders who give to curb the problem. skills to those in need. accounts about the realities “It shouldn’t just be and dangers of gang and left to the police,” says prison life. To date, Wandisile. “If we can all Wandisile says, 18 Gangster do our part, our job will Museum has reformed 25 be done.”

82 INNOVATOR Zuko Mandlakazi Murendeni Mafumo Senso, Johannesburg Kusini Water, Johannesburg Senso is a device that uses Meet the scientist who is utilising vibration and light to help deaf macadamia nut shells to solve people navigate the world South Africa’s water crisis

Above The clever Senso Over five million South Above Murendeni is wristbands will help those Africans don’t have access to bringing clean drinking struggling with hearing clean drinking water. If water to rural communities Murendeni Mafumo has his with his ingenious filter way, that number will drop Zuko Mandlakazi grew up the LEDs turn pink. But you to zero in a few years. who can’t afford to buy one. in the Eastern Cape with an can also use your Senso as a Scientist Murendeni is the In the last year alone, his aunt who was hard of safety device. So if the alarm founder of Kusini Water – a social enterprise has hearing. Each day, he’d see goes off and the device picks solar-powered water donated close to 150,000 some of the struggles she’d it up, it will notify you.” purification system that uses litres of water to over 3,000 go through and he often A prototype of the device macadamia nuts to provide families in the community of wondered how he could has been made and Zuko clean drinking water for Vhembe, Limpopo. make the world easier to hopes to start mass- rural communities. When he was a child navigate for her. He would producing and selling it by Here’s how it works.“We growing up in rural worry about what would August. But this project is crush macadamia nuts and Limpopo, Murendeni often become of her as she got about more than money for turn them into a paste,” used to see women older. What if a fire broke the softly spoken social Murendeni says. collecting water from rivers. out? Would she be able to entrepreneur. Zuko often “Macadamia nut shells are a Ultimately, he’d like to see a hear the alarm? tells the tale of three deaf very fine material, finer world where everyone has This was the driving pupils who died in a fire than a strand of hair, and access to clean drinking force that led him to develop while asleep in their school when you push water water. It’s a situation he’s Senso: a wristband that hostel in 2015. If Senso can through this ‘paste’, it acts slowly been working on, detects sounds using save even one life, he as a filter and separates the day by day, litre by litre. vibrations and LED, in reckons he’s achieved sediment from the water.” order to alert users of something worthwhile. As for his business sounds around them. model, Murendeni works on “The user determines what he calls a ‘one-for-one’ which sounds they need the model. For every bottle of alert for,” says Zuko. “So, for water he sells to a private example, you could set the business, another is given, device to recognise the free of charge, to someone sound of your child crying and use pink as a colour to signify that. When the

LUKE DANIEL/RED BULL CONTENT POOL (2), 18GM.CO.ZA, PHILIPP SCHUSTER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, SENSO.CO.ZA, REMI MAUTJANA, BELINDA BOWLING device picks up that sound, your wristband vibrates and

INNOVATOR 83 Thabang Mabapa Neo Hutiri Selokong Sa Dimelana, Limpopo Technovera, Pretoria Meet the PR graduate who uses castor beans to From three hours to thirty seconds – Neo Hutiri make renewable, eco-friendly diesel is using technology to cut waiting times for medication for chronic conditions

Above The oil is extracted from the In 2014, Neo Hutiri Above These smart lockers store caster beans; Thabang sees great contracted tuberculosis. For medication supplies; patients enter potential for his idea six months, he travelled to details on their smartphone to his local clinic to get his retrieve the contents, with no Left Harvesting the castor beans; medication – a process that waiting time they contain oil which can be used often left him frustrated. for biodiesel and in cosmetics “Every month, I’d go there and spend up to three and is said to prolong the hours waiting in a queue for down to minutes.” lifespan of engines. He also my medication. It was the Neo piloted the concept produces castor oil that he most frustrating thing but it at a clinic in Mamelodi, sells to cosmetic companies, also introduced me to a Pretoria in 2016 and saw Thabang Mabapa makes who sell it as a skin and hair problem faced by so many 3,500 patient collections as biodiesel out of castor care product. “We currently South Africans,” says the a result. The average beans. It’s as simple and as produce between eight and engineering graduate. collection time was 36 complicated as that. “I was ten tons of castor oil per day This lead him to found seconds. “No one should introduced to castor beans to consumers and cosmetics Technovera – the start-up have to stand in a queue for when I was a kid,” says the companies and 200 litres of responsible for Pelebox: a most of the day in order to Limpopo-based biodiesel to farmers to use smart locker that allows collect life-saving medicine,” entrepreneur. “I was as fuel for their tractors,” people with chronic medical says Neo. “I’ve actually set a cleaning the yard at a local says Thabang. “We’re conditions to collect their target of 20,000 patient church and I remember looking to expand and hope medication in minutes. collections for this year but pressing one and seeing the to supply oil companies The smart lockers are if we can help one person, oil come out of it. I’ve been and airlines soon.” installed in clinics and once we’ve done our job.” obsessed with the castor Unlike petroleum-based they’ve been loaded with bean’s versatile oil ever diesel, biodiesel is a medication, an SMS is sent Read more about these since,” he says. source to the patient with a one- entrepreneurs at In 2013, he founded and is also less polluting. time pin. amaphiko.redbull.com Selokong Sa Dimelana Thabang hopes one day the “The patient goes to their (which means ‘a place rest of the world catches on locker and enters their ID where things grow’ in to its potential. number, mobile phone Sepedi): a social enterprise number and pin and, just that harvests castor oil and like that, they get their uses it to produce biodiesel. medication,” says Neo. “In

The oil is an eco-friendly this way, a process that ADRIAAN LOUW/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, LINDSEY APPOLIS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL (2), LUKE DANIEL/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, TECHNOVERA alternative to fossil fuels usually takes hours is cut

84 INNOVATOR BEYOND THE ORDINARY

THE INTERNATIONAL ACTIVE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE EMIL SOLLIE / RED BULL CONTENT POOL theredbulletin.com No ark needed

34 BRAZIL DISASTER PROTECTION

86 INNOVATOR Flooding in the city of Franco da Rocha in the north of São Paulo state in March 2016

Every year, hundreds of families in São Paulo lose their homes due to floods and landslides. Pluvi.On aims to minimise such damage with a plastic box, which has proved to be more reliable than any weather report

WORDS BY ISABEL DE BARROS REUTERS/PAULO WHITAKER

INNOVATOR 87 How does a simple idea turn into your life’s mission? According to the Pluvi.On crew, it’s about belief. If you’re convinced that your idea can make a big impact for people in your neighbourhood, it might have the potential to create positive change on a global level. The idea that the engineers Diogo Tolezano, Pedro Godoy and Murilo Souza, product designer Mariana Marcilio and data scientist Hugo Santos tackled was the issue of floods in their home town of São Paulo, Brazil, and it soon became their mission in life. They created a simple device – one that looks a bit like a toy but is capable of saving the lives of thousands. How does The team (from left): In the summer of 2017, São Paulo was Hugo Santos; Diogo hit by an average of one flood every an idea turn Tolezano; Mariana three days, according to the city Marcílio; Jessé Stenico, government’s Emergency into your meteorologist; Pedro Management Centre. Surveys Godoy and Murilo prepared by the Brazilian Water life’s Souza, financial officer Agency reveal that 47.5 per cent of Brazil’s cities declared a state of emergency because of the floods. mission? The open source More than 30 million Brazilians are version of the device affected by floods every year, According at the Red Bull according to reinsurer Swiss Re, Basement Hatch in which translates to losses amounting São Paulo to £740 million. In turn, global to the figures spiked at 500 million people affected, equal to £11 billion in Pluvi.On annual losses. crew, it’s The Pluvi.On team has been developing a pluviometer – a low-cost device that measures rainfall, in order about belief to build a database with sufficient

information to send out free flood PLUVION.COM.BR, PRODUTORA BIG MOUTH alerts to people. “Our purpose is to

88 INNOVATOR equal to 31 pluviometers per neighbourhood or one per 12,000 people. More devices available to measure rainfall means better information and more accurate alerts. “Floods happen every summer in São Paulo – everyone who lives here knows that,” says Diogo, who has already lost a car during a flood. “Lack of information, however, is not exclusive to Brazil but a global issue. There is very little awareness about send out safety alerts and manage to flood warnings because results take reduce losses – both in terms of lives time – it’s a long-term project.” and financially, too,” says Diogo. Back in 2016, Diogo, Pedro and The city of São Paulo is already using Murilo got together after meeting at pluviometers but they are expensive, a consulting company focused on and there’s far too few of them. management and company processes. According to Pedro, “The system They were looking for more than a needs a certain amount of data to regular job and wanted something send out accurate alerts instead of with real purpose, something that chaos, and this data is still was affecting society. During a course unavailable. When we first started on futurism, the trio learned about doing research back in 2016, we the Japanese organisation Safecast, found out there were only 120 which openly measures and shares pluviometers installed in São Paulo.” information on nuclear radiation. Brazil’s largest city is the financial Thanks to the project, the capital of Latin America, with a organisation managed to map population of more than 12 million radioactivity in Japan over three people and 32 neighbourhoods. This months, and prove how such means that there was one meter per information was needed. “The 100,000 people. Today, Pluvi.On government even issued an apology estimates São Paulo needs one to the people at the time,” says Pedro. thousand meters to produce accurate “The case inspired us to reflect on information every ten to 20 blocks, Brazil’s situation and find where similar information was needed,” Diogo adds. Brazil’s worst water crisis, which began in 2014, was coming to an end at this point and water seemed to be the trending topic, especially because São Paulo suffered the consequences. The team conducted a study and discovered the principle issues they needed to address: lack of information and urban floods.

The trio also learned that if their idea was to send out alerts, it would be necessary to gather information and save it in a network. This was why the pluviometer was designed. The first homemade station was laser-cut from a piece of old packaging, with a funnel made from a plastic bottle and stuck together with hot glue. The prototype was then developed during the Red Bull Basement programme (see next page), made from laser-cut acrylic, operating on WiFi. The device was capable of measuring rain, temperature and humidity, in addition to being low cost – £37 each

INNOVATOR 89 – six times less than a similar model. Red Bull The pluviometer captured water in a bucket, divided into two parts, working in a see-saw motion. When Basement the rainwater filled one side of the bucket, its own weight caused the This empowering programme gives the bucket to turn, releasing the water accumulated inside the equipment innovators of social enterprises the and revealing the other side for opportunity to share, develop and realise collection purposes. The Pluvi.On system recorded rainfall whenever their vision. For Pluvi.On, Basement was the movement occurred, to then the perfect springboard to making their calculate the probability of a flood in any given region, based on data from venture happen… an integrated network of pluviometers.

As the project evolved, it became necessary to validate the meter – until then, the team had only informally installed the devices. The first real test took place in Lapa, in the north of São Paulo, at the request of the district government. “The district mayor gave us the opportunity, we obtained the permits and installed 30 acrylic stations in the neighbourhood,” says Diogo. It was at a meeting with city government officials from different areas, ranging from transportation to energy, that Diogo and his partners realised the impact Pluvi.On could have on people, cities and governments. Meanwhile, the Climatempo, one of Brazil’s leading weather companies, took an interest Pluvi.On participated in Red debate on solutions and in the project. With the backing of Bull Basement, organised in projects, exploring the such an influential name, it was time Brazil in 2015, and a project creative use of technology for Pluvi.On to go on the attack. soon to be expanded to 23 to tackle urban issues. In 2017, 90 pluviometers were other countries. The “Mentoring is the main installed in São Paulo – practically programme seeks out contribution we bring to the one per district. The Pluvi.On team ambitious projects at hackers,” says Samuel switched their focus to business after receiving buyout proposals. Catering production level and uses Barreto, who heads the global to market needs called for the technology to offer smart yet implementation strategy for human solutions for large development of new rainfall the Basement programme. measuring stations, now made with cities. Ideas which make Adds company partner Diogo plastic and therefore more easily urban areas more inclusive Tolezano: “The Pluvi.On scalable. The current device measures and accessible, as most of prototype was developed rainfall volume and intensity, the world’s population is during the programme – we temperature, humidity, wind direction and speed, plus solar concentrated in cities. completed the process ready radiation. The device still costs six Once chosen to participate in to hit the market.” times less than a similar model. the Basement programme, Samuel sums it up: There are now 15 people working the start-up receives a “Basement stands out, for Pluvi.On, providing services to the hacker residence, including thanks to its technology- Port of Salvador and to large companies in the energy, agriculture access to a makerspace with based approach.” and transport industries. Thanks to a free workshops and monthly network of sensors installed where talks. Red Bull Basement not needed, Pluvi.On monitors weather only boosts innovative ideas factors and understands how each

but also opens up room for company is affected by conditions. FELIPE GABRIEL/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, PLUVION.COM.BR The team’s target is to close 2018 with

90 INNOVATOR They dream of installing 15,000 pluviometers throughout Brazil’s cities with the largest populations

a turnover of £740,000. The company expects to have over 1,000 clients within five years with turnover exceeding 1,500 per cent.

Pedro installing a It will be possible to send out a safe pluviometer in São flood alert in São Paulo from 2021. Paulo as part of a pilot “We have to monitor the upcoming scheme. The device rainy season and understand how monitors the climate we’ll carry out our work together with in real time the city government agencies,” Diogo explains. Until then, Pluvi.On is working with real-time rain forecasts via São Pedro Bot, a chatbot that will notify its followers. According to its The open-source forecast, São Pedro Bot will have one pluviometer is fixed million users in five years. Pluvi.On is in place working with specific company demands for the time being, which automatically increases its network of meters and information. “We’re dedicating 90 per cent of our time to companies and 10 per cent to the city population. The idea is to switch those numbers within five years,” says Diogo. The team dreams Pedro and Diogo with of installing 15,000 pluviometers their invention at throughout the cities of Brazil with WeFab makerspace the largest populations. Pluvi.On is in São Paulo conscious of the power of its product and is thinking globally. Adds Diogo: “We want to make cities and populations more resilient to climate shocks, which will be increasingly frequent from now on.”

pluvion.com.br

INNOVATOR 91 YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS.

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INNOVATOR 95 READ IT Want to change the world? to the point of being unable to cope. Sadly, it’s no rare thing in the fast-paced and highly pressured start-up scene. If mental health – or more simply an absence of or the prevention against, Start by changing mental illness – is a genuine concern for everyone these days, it is especially so for social entrepreneurs; we’re highly motivated, purpose-led people whose yourself first ability to put others first might mean risking our own wellbeing. I say all this because the publishing project I launched in 2017 – Torchlight System: Storytelling For Recovery – is directly concerned with these issues of mental health and illness, and is a direct result of them. Backstory: in 2014, I andhi didn’t actually suffered what’s called a ‘major depressive say “be the change episode’ while living and working as a you want to see in magazine editor in Berlin. This the world”, but we manifested in an intense phase of suicidal G could easily imagine ideation – compulsively thinking about him delivering an insight so simple and the whys and ways to do it – but in the powerful that it’s been quoted on end (and I’m never quite sure how) I did Kevin innumerable Instagram posts by wellness something else: I posted a message on Braddock vloggers, yoga influencers and leadership Facebook saying ‘I need help’, and not gurus. The message rings true, especially long after, friends arrived, took me to a is founder and editor- in-chief of Torchlight so for social entrepreneurs who want to hospital where I was admitted as a System: Storytelling create positive impact in the world. But to patient, and began a long, slow recovery For Recovery. do any of that, social entrepreneurs need journey, which is still ongoing. Previously he has to heed the Gandhi sentiment and look worked as a writer- after themselves first. Because if we’re Today Torchlight System offers things editor for titles broken, the corner of world we want to which help people talk about, live with including GQ, The Face, Esquire and The change will stay broken too. and recover from issues such as Guardian Broken is perhaps too strong a word, depression and anxiety: there’s Torchlight, torchlightsystem.com but as the social conversation around a memoir of this breakdown and recovery mental health and illness is fast which talks in plain terms about the accelerating today, more and more of us things that led to it (I’ve suffered from are becoming aware that what goes on depression and anxiety since my early inside – the condition of our twenties). Its message is that these psychological and emotional interior – experiences are common today but that is one of the biggest (perhaps even there is no shame in asking for help. the biggest) determinants of success And then there are the ‘Practice Cards’ on the outside. which show suggestions for dealing with It’s estimated that one in four people these issues: shuffle the pack, pick two will suffer from a mental illness at some cards, try to carry out at least one of these point during their lives. According to the suggestions and build positive habits World Health Organisation, depression every day. Practice Cards are a way to and anxiety have a significant economic make a game out of ‘getting better’ – or impact; the estimated cost to the global more accurately, living with these economy is £740 billion per year in lost conditions. When I was starting to recover productivity. And at the sharp end of from this breakdown, I tried out a lot of these statistics, suicide remains the single different techniques, philosophies and biggest killer of men under the age of 45 practices, from tai chi and yoga to 45 (in the UK). Perhaps you’ve heard of abstinence and stoicism by way of UNITED KINGDOM someone suffering a burnout or creativity and mindfulness, and Practice ANASTASIA MUNA MENTAL HEALTH breakdown, where they are overwhelmed Cards are a way of randomising all of

96 INNOVATOR COLUMN GLOBAL TEAM Social

these resources. But the Practice bit is Editor-in-Chief Repro the most important: doing something for Alexander Macheck Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Claudia your mental health every day. Heis, Nenad Isailovic, Maximilian Kment, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Josef Mühlbacher However, we’re all aware that the Florian Obkircher world never stops turning, and life Office Management Art Director Kristina Krizmanic, Yvonne Tremmel demands from us more attention, energy Kasimir Reimann and initiative than ever. So what are some IT Systems Engineer practical things we can do to stay well Photo Editors Michael Thaler enough to create positive change? A few Eva Kerschbaum (photo director), Susie Forman, Tahira Mirza Global Editorial Office Practice Cards which seem relevant are: Heinrich-Collin-Straße 1, A-1140 Vienna Production Editor Phone +43 1 90221-28800, One day at a time: among the most Marion Lukas-Wildmann Fax +43 1 90221-28809 effective techniques for people recovering Managing Editor Web from a mental illness episode (or, Ulrich Corazza www.redbulletin.com especially, an addiction) is to crunch the Chief Sub-Editor vast eternity of time down into 24-hour Red Bull Media House GmbH Olivia Rosen Oberst-Lepperdinger-Straße 11–15, units. Just do what matters today and A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Advisors repeat the same process tomorrow. Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 Richard Loat, Emma Warren, Julia Willcox General Manager and Publisher Find your own pace: charging along at Design Andreas Kornhofer the prevailing pace of your peers and Marco Arcangeli, Marion Bernert-Thomann, competitors is a guaranteed route to Martina de Carvalho-Hutter, Kevin Goll, Directors exhaustion unless you find time to move Carita Najewitz, Michael Nolan, Ute Schindler Dietrich Mateschitz, Gerrit Meier, Dietmar Otti, Christopher Reindl at a tempo which suits you. Switch off Illustrations Elke Bauer and wander a while; creating change is a Printer Contributors Prinovis GmbH & Co KG, marathon rather than a sprint. Isabel de Barros, Kevin Braddock, Printing Company Nuremberg, Sam Conniff Allende, Tom Guise, 90ß471 Nuremberg, Germany Meditate: it hardly needs repeating that Waltraud Hable, Richard Loat, Rofhiwa meditation and mindfulness are very Maneta, Ruth Morgan, Michelle Antoinette effective methods of decluttering the Nelson, Christina Rostworowski da Costa, mind and returning to the present. But Desmond Tumulty, Simant Verma, Emma Warren, Lea Wieser, Kieran Yates let’s repeat it anyway. Global Project Management Together: is yours a solo mission? Then Melissa Stutz beware of isolation. Invite collaboration Country Management and Marketing and avoid doing all problem-solving in Sara Varming (Ltg.), Magdalena Bonecker, your own head. And lastly: Julia Gerber, Kristina Hummel Global Head of Media Sales Ask for help: if you feel like you’re Gerhard Riedler struggling but you’re not sure why; if you have a constant feeling of being Head of Media Sales International Peter Strutz overwhelmed; if you feel ashamed and that you’re a failure… it may be time to Head of Publishing Development ask for help. Start with the people closest and Product Management to you and then go to your doctor. Stefan Ebner Head of Commercial Publishing Of course, this ‘ask for help’ principle Birgit Gasser needn’t only apply to mental wellbeing. Head of Creative Markus Kietreiber There’s a degree of humility in confessing a need for, say, assistance, advice or Commercial Design morale, but asking for help (and by the Peter Knehtl (manager), Sasha Bunch, Simone Fischer, Martina Maier same token, offering it) reflects the give- and-take dynamic by which society Advertising Placement functions, when it’s functioning well. Andrea Tamás-Loprais And if you want to make it function Production even better? As Gandhi would have said – Wolfgang Stecher (manager), make sure you’re OK to begin with. Walter O. Sádaba, Friedrich Indich

INNOVATOR 97 READ IT LAST PAGE

These nuns are the Khilwa nunnery in Kathmandu, Nepal, where each day, 350 nuns between the age of ten and 25 participate in intense training sessions, studying weaponry Himalayan region’s and hand-to-hand combat. In Himalayan regions, they’re known as the Kung Fu nuns – local superheroes, due to their social superheroes commitment. In 2015, instead of evacuating their home after the

earthquake in Nepal, they gave first- FLORIAN OBKIRCHER In the Buddhist monastic system, nuns aid assistance to villagers nearby. In are usually expected to take care of 2016, they cycled from Kathmandu to household chores and are not Delhi (2,200 kilometres) to create permitted to exercise. Ten years ago, awareness for ecological issues. His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa They pass on their skills to girls in changed the situation for women in his self-defence workshops, amid rising order. Inspired by his mother’s reports of sex crimes. “Some say we dedication to empower women, the should just sit, pray and meditate,” said leader of the 1,000-year-old Drukpa Jigme Wangchuk Lhamo, a 19-year-old lineage encouraged them to take Kung Fu nun, at a conference in 46 leadership positions and learn Kung Fu. London last November. “But a nun’s NEPAL The paradigm shift has had an duty is more than that. We must better SELF-DEFENCE impressive result at the Druk Gawa society and do good for others.” SIMON DETREY-WHITE/EYEVINE/PICTUREDESK.COM

98 INNOVATOR HOW TO BE YOUR OWN ACCELERATOR?