Pioneers of Change
June Vision 2024 update
Pioneers of Change
To Improve the World
The Pioneers of Change report examines people, companies and communities who are improving the world with actions and strategies that are hopeful and encouraging. During the research for this report, it became clear that these are primarily local initiatives, and most are bottom-up instead of top-down. The report is not about good ideas; the selection criteria are those developments that proved to be successful on a smaller scale and can be copied elsewhere to make an impact. The report is about positive signals and positive changes to make the world a better place.
Many of the world’s most pressing issues cannot be solved without fundamentally changing the societal systems that support them. There is a role for innovators in promoting systemic change and building a foundation for a better future. The report Pioneers of Change shows examples of who is pioneering the changes to transform the world for the better and who is tackling the world’s most pressing issues to make an impact at scale.
You can download the PDF of the report here
Projects for Impact
More people are becoming activists in the desire to change the world for the better. Companies, innovators, designers and creatives use their business and work to address pressing social and environmental problems. But how can impact be measured, and what does impact mean? The impact can mean reaching and engaging an audience or creating awareness. Fueling debate or changing mindsets can have an impact as well.
The impact is currently usually measured on an economic scale in terms of jobs created, products or services sold, scale and revenue growth. Measuring the impact on the environment and well-being of people is a new area, and data is increasingly being used to measure this kind of impact, also in the creative sector. Imagination and design are indispensable in these times of significant transitions. Accountability should also be reflected in these areas.
Content
1/ Culture
Through culture, people and groups define themselves, conform to society’s shared values, and contribute to society. Art and storytelling are a vehicle to strengthen a community’s legacy. It includes our values, beliefs, customs, languages and traditions and shapes our futures.
Culture is a basis for peaceful coexistence; it provides understanding and aids tolerance. Culture creates trust and better understanding among people, something that is much needed in our divided societies.
The three pioneers we selected are open-minded, break barriers, share pride, have a strong identity, authenticity, and the ability to touch people and share emotions.
Stromae
To be real and unpredictable
The Belgian musician soared to fame in the early 2010s before withdrawing from public life with depression. His songs have a strong social conscience; he sings about struggling with mental health and the life of low-pay essential workers. He mixes severe themes with playfulness and originality. This mix of emotions, intimacy, honesty, effectiveness and humour, self-confidence and ambition make Stromae unique and special.
Stromae sees himself as a collective project and a character in collaboration with the people around him and with whom he works. His style and identity are highly creative and constantly changing. Multitude, the title of his latest album, covers the range and fluidity of his creations. He mixes references and elements from cultures and musical influences worldwide; cumbia and salsa from South America, throat singing from Mongolia, zouk from the Antilles, and Congolese music and creates something new and unexpected out of it.
When he withdrew from the public eye in 2015, he devoted himself to diverse projects: video clips with his production company Mosaert, fashion, architecture and car design.
“I do not want the things I do to be easy and predictable. I want them to be real.”
Thandiwe Muriu
For a new Africa
Photographer Thandiwe Muriu is inspired by the covers of fashion magazines and celebrates the rich cultural history of her Kenyan heritage. She photographs her subjects in striking, intricately patterned fabrics that resemble the traditional textiles of various African countries and cultures. Many of Muriu’s images also feature models wearing ornately constructed hairstyles, further illustrating her examination of themes surrounding Black womanhood and pushing the boundaries of beauty standards.
“I want my models to blend into the background even as they stand out.”
Her models are standing out in camouflage. The photos are a commentary on how we can lose ourselves to the expectations culture has on us as individuals. Yet, there are such unique and beautiful things about every individual.
“I want to be a Kenyan-based photographer serving Africa.”
Showcasing her native culture and people to the world, she observes everyday scenes on the streets of Nairobi, as well as the faces and energy around her, and channels it into her work. Her pictures work with traditional elements but in a new way, for a new Africa, for a new generation.
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Dzvenyslava
The war in Ukraine through TikTok
Dzvenyslava Hlibovytska, a 19-year-old Kyiv native, studying in Lviv, started posting TikToks to show how the war has affected her daily life. As an 18-year-old, Dzvenyslava shared her life on TikTok, and for her, it was natural to keep doing so now that Ukraine is at war with Russia.
Dzvenyslava has fled Ukraine after an arduous evacuation journey, which she documented on the app, and now lives in Denmark. She is still posting about the war and answering questions. 6.6 million people have now fled the war in Ukraine. Can they work? Do they need a permit? If you do not have savings, what do you do?
The direct stories of a young person through TikTok have reached many young people and made the war a real thing for them.
2/ Modern Day Activism
Today’s young people are advocating, fighting, and actively taking on the powers that be to stand up for what they believe in. Given the rise of the populist movement in the Western world and the multiple crises that are interconnected, it is more important than ever to stay engaged.
The power and influence of social media in modern-day activism are significant; it helps people find each other and raise their voices united. Connective action puts complex issues back in the public consciousness, ultimately challenging the broader political narrative.
We selected three empowering activists raising important questions while giving a platform to others through building communities.
Tori Tsui
Intersectional climate justice
Tori Tsui is a UK-based climate activist, speaker and filmmaker from Hong Kong who studied ecology and conservation for her master’s degree and became a research scientist. She is the co-founder of the space Bad Activist Collective and a member of the climate coalition Unite For Climate Action.
“Diverse activism is necessary because not every form is going to relate to people. Perspective is really important. Being in the Global North, we forget about the people in the Global South who are on the front lines of the climate crisis.”
Tori is also an outspoken mental health advocate who highlights the connection between environmental and mental wellbeing. In her book, she reframes eco-anxiety as a mental health crisis that encompasses many injustices and is deeply entrenched in racism, sexism, ableism and capitalism.
“Fights for intersectional climate justice must incorporate our wellbeing, embracing individuality over individualism, and striving to build community and collective action.”
Soma Sara
Eradicate rape culture
Soma Sara is known for her campaign Everyone’s Invited, asking people to call out sexism in schools via anonymous submissions. Everyone’s Invited began to create a safe space for survivors of sexual harassment and violence.
“For some, it gives a sense of catharsis, solidarity and empowerment, and hopefully, it helps them begin to heal.”
The initiative launched in June 2020 after conversations Sara had with friends about the pervasiveness of rape culture among young people prompted her to share her own experiences on Instagram. By March 2021 more than 15,000 anonymous testimonies had been submitted to the Everyone’s Invited website. This prompted the UK government to respond with tangible change: by launching an Ofsted review in schools, announcing new guidelines from the Office for Students to address rape culture in universities, and setting up an NSPCC helpline for survivors.
Sharing stories is empowering and can bring real change. Soma wants young people to live in a world where they do not live in fear of violation, where sexual violence cannot thrive, and survivors are listened to, supported and empowered.
Girls Rock London
Boost confidence through music
Girls Rock London (GRL) is a music project which runs boot camps for women where you learn to create and perform music with other women, ultimately raising funds for a girl’s rock camp aimed at 11-16-year-olds to help boost their confidence. They provide music programming for young and adult women, trans, and non-binary people, with a specific focus on increasing access for people who face barriers to participation.
Positive action projects are vital when it comes to empowering young people; they try and get them to think about how to learn by making mistakes, increasing self-esteem, and helping them to speak up and take up space.
Music has the power to transform lives. Making music together, seeing diverse role models in music and learning about the business side of the music industry empowers the next generation of musicians.
3/ Cities
What will our cities look like in 2050? Cities will continue to expand, with more skyscrapers being built as millions head to large cities for employment and career prospects. One thing is certain; future cities will involve large numbers of people living in a relatively small space.
Climate change will have a significant impact on cities. Making cities more resilient against environmental threats is one of the biggest challenges city authorities faces and requires urgent attention.
We selected a country and two architects as pioneers. The female architects question what the role of an architect is in the future and how architecture can aid society or even a continent. Singapore has many challenges in its scale, population and location but has transformed the area into a green city in a garden ready for the future.
Sophie Pelsmakers
What does it mean to be an architect?
Sophie Pelsmakers is the co-founder of Architecture for Change, a not-for-profit environmental building and research organisation with the mission of challenging the way we design and build. She is interested in how buildings and spaces work in reality and how buildings are used and change over time, and solutions to climatic, environmental and social challenges.
She is passionate about bridging the information gap between research and knowledge application in design and building practice. In her books, she creates practical steps, cutting through the complex mass of technical data and legislation.
Architects need to rethink what it means to be an architect in an era of the climate crisis and their role. Local materials, working with nature, radical design processes, transformative learning and activism can help find hope in the burning world and create change for a more sustainable and equitable tomorrow.
Singapore
A glimpse into the future
In 2021 Singapore was voted the cleanest and greenest city in the world. Nicknamed "The City in a Garden", Singapore has promoted itself as a leader in environmental sustainability. In 2020 46.5 per cent of Singapore's land was covered in green space, with over 300 km of green corridors as part of the city state's 'Park Connector Network'.
Although Singapore is considered to be one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, they have developed desalination stations and a new technique for recycling wastewater called NEWater.
With only 1 per cent of land available for food production and over 90 per cent of food imported, Singapore aims to produce 30 per cent of its food supply locally and sustainably by 2030. It has turned to agri-technology and alternative foods to create more food security. By creating verticle farms to grow produce and as the first and only country in the world to approve the sale of cultured meat and cell-based milk, Singapore is at the forefront of food technology.
Three fundamental principles guide Singapore's approach to sustainable development: an integrated approach and long-term strategic planning, investments in R&D and innovative solutions and forging partnerships.
Lesley Lokko
To be hopeful is to be human
Lesley Lokko is the first black curator of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia and the third woman selected for the role. She is a Ghanaian-Scottish architect who had several teaching positions and careers worldwide, most notably in Johannesburg, London, Accra, and Edinburgh.
She founded the African Futures Institute in Accra in 2020, positioning Africa as “The Laboratory of the Future”. Cultural and racial identity is an essential theme in much of Lokko’s work across architecture and writing.
In an interview she said
“A new world order is emerging, with new knowledge production and control centres. There is a young cohort of emerging African and African diasporic practitioners working across various disciplines, working across the built environment not only in architecture, and shifting the conversation.”
4/ Technology
The development of AI is speeding up. AI is both positive and negative; many are scared of its implications on our societies and work. AI reflects the people who made it; if it is biased, the engineered mindset will affect us all.
How can we ensure that employees can keep up with the evolving demand for skills and have the opportunity to contribute purposefully to the future workplace?
Digital design and the creation of the Metaverse are in their infancy and hold a promise for a new way of working, designing and communicating. Web 3.0 is about decentralization, trust, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, connectivity and ubiquity.
Two technology pioneers are tech optimists; they are building new systems and worlds through experimentation, shifting the boundaries. Our third choice is critical of the system and its effect on people, society and nature. She advocates a more significant connection to nature and a healthier relationship with technology.
Auroboros
Digital-native luxury fashion
The London-based, science-meets-tech-meets-fashion house Auroboros was founded by creative directors Paula Sello and Alissa Aulbekova. They began working together in 2018 and created physical couture that mimics the natural world by making designs that grow on the body.
Auroborous merges science and technology to create physical and digital-only couture that can be worn and purchased through social media, film, avatars and video games. Auroboros has received honourable recognition for being at the forefront of innovation, sustainability and immersive design.
During the first Metaverse Fashion Week held in March 2022, they created a digital rocket-shaped building for the closing event and an outfit for Grimes, who performed a DJ set. Although the Metaverse Fashion Week was a limited experiment of what could be, it showed how digital design of clothes could free the design language. Fabrics could have enormous volume, radiate light and react to sound, challenging how we imagine, design and affect clothing consumption.
OpenAI
The fast development of AI
OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. The artificial intelligence research laboratory founded in 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever and others has announced DALL-E 2 in 2022, a transformer model that creates images from textual descriptions.
DALL·E 2’s technology is groundbreaking and revolutionary; it is a powerful, creative tool. DALL·E 2 can add and remove elements while taking into account shadows, reflections, and textures. It can already create realistic images in seconds, making it a tool that will find ready use in production.
As with other AI technologies, there are moral and ethical concerns about how the products will be used. It could open up creative opportunities, making designers more creative by generating options and adding freedom or creating stereotypical, biased representations, severely disrupting the work and earning power of designers, artists, photographers, and visual content creators.
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Kalpana Arias
Our relationship with technology and nature
Kalpana Arias is a tech-philosopher, climate activist and ecosomatics educator. She aims to make people rediscover their connection to nature in the digital age. Ecosomatics is the intersection between ecology, technology, the environment, and the body's lived experience. Through our bodies, we interact with the world around us. If we have a closer connection, it will positively impact both individual and planetary health.
She sees technology as a mirror for the consciousness of the world. The momentum of our technological progress is driving the trajectory of our evolution towards an uninhabitable future. Current technological trends are distancing our interactions with nature without considering whether this benefits our existence on Earth.
“The tide can be turned, the transition to becoming more human-nature-centred will be critical in addressing the effects of the climate crisis and social injustices.”
5/ Education
Education is a powerful agent of change, improves health and livelihoods, contributes to social stability and drives long-term economic growth. Increased access to education can contribute to reducing poverty and hunger. Acquired basic skills such as reading, writing and numeracy have a documented positive effect on marginalized populations’ incomes. Education gives people a chance at better lives.
Education can be hyperpersonal or social. You can learn from each other through activities and stories and see the greater holistic picture, or you can learn individualized, personalized and adaptive supported through AI.
Our pioneers advocate equal access and support in education, education that teaches people to be ready for the future, and hyper-personalized exponential learning through AI.
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Anindya Kundu
Closing the educational gap
Evidence shows the gap in test scores between students from the wealthiest and poorest families has not changed in fifty years. The school system perpetuates what it is supposed to fix; it makes the social divide worse. How can we tap into all students' potential, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds?
Anindya Kundu is a sociologist who studies agency and leadership, specifically around individuals' abilities to create positive social change. Kundu tells the story of people who beat the odds to become academically and professionally successful. Who has overcome challenges such as broken families, homelessness, unexpected pregnancies, forms of abuse or incarceration?
“The better-educated communities we have, the stronger communities we will have in the future-ready to tackle social problems such as climate change, the next pandemic, mass incarceration and dwindling social security'.”
Green School Bali
Prepare for the future
The philosophy of being in and around nature is central to the learning at Green School. Green school is creating new standards of education and syllabus with their unique approach and mindset on teaching.
Founders John and Cynthia Hardy created, in the jungle, a natural, holistic, student-centred learning environment that empowers and inspires their students.
“We believe in three simple rules underlying every decision: be local, let your environment be your guide and envisage how your grandchildren will be affected by your actions.”
The head of the school believes that they are teaching the values that matter the most in our time. This school educates the children about modern global problems. They are raising future activists who will be able to make a change in the future and create a better society for all of us.
Riiid
Deeplearning AI, Edtech for exponential learning
AI is changing the learning landscape. In education and learning, applying AI to education is not new; applications go back over 50 years. South Korea’s reputation for early adoption of technologies, combined with a large proportion of teenagers entering higher education, has made it a significant testbed for educational technology start-ups wanting to move into global markets.
Riiid’s AI can predict if a learner will get specific questions right or wrong with 90 per cent accuracy and recommend the path they need to study and measure progress in real-time. Riiid started with an English learning app called Santa in South Korea to help people pass the English tests and grew from there.
People learn at different speeds and in different ways; Riiid wants to help people learn about themselves and learn at their tempo. The AI knows when you will quit, so it has various intervention methods and incentives to keep you on.
The three i’s in Riiid stand for inefficiency, inconsistency, and inequality, three things they want to delete from the existing education system.
“We are talking not just financial impact, but more importantly, life impact for the well-being and future of humanity.”
6/ Health
Health and wellbeing make an essential contribution to economic progress. Ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing at all ages is critical to sustainable development. The location where we live, the state of our environment, genetics, income and education level and relationships with friends and family significantly impact health factors. Also, healthy behaviours and what we eat influence the state of health.
We looked at pioneers in the area of better health because health is central to human happiness and wellbeing. E-health is an important category to watch, and how VR can help people heal and recover. Access to personalized healthcare is essential no matter where you live.
Isabel Van De
Keere
VR health
Isabel Van De Keere is the Founder & CEO of Immersive Rehab, a digital therapeutics startup that is transforming neurorehabilitation by offering personalised and engaging neurorehabilitation programmes in Virtual Reality to improve patient recovery and reduce waiting times to access rehab.
Immersive Rehab provides a personalised, engaging and clinically-validated digital therapeutics solution in virtual reality to tackle the current limitations of neurorehabilitation.
VR can help people improve their mobility. Isabel wants to create digital therapies for neuro rehabilitation in VR and make rehab fun and engaging.
54gene
Equalizing precision medicine
Almost 90 per cent of genetic material used in pharmaceutical research is Caucasian, and less than 3 per cent is African. This is despite research saying that Africans and people of African ancestry are more genetically diverse than all other world populations combined. Founded by Dr Abasi Ene-Obong, 54gene seeks to solve this problem by including underrepresented Africans in global genomics research and to equalize precision medicine for all people.
Africa is known to possess more genetic variation than any other continent. However, the lack of genomic data for African populations holds back the adequate and accurate description of the true scale of diversity across the continent and limits insights into variants influencing susceptibility to diseases.
It is a transformative era for genomics research and precision medicine in Africa. 54gene believes in the vision of a healthier Africa: one where personalized healthcare is the order of the day no matter where you live.
Ami
Mental wellness for all
A March report from the World Health Organization found that the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a 25 per cent increase in depression and anxiety worldwide. Ami, a mental wellness company with offices in Singapore and Indonesia, aims to have a presence throughout Asia. The idea is to offer frictionless access to the right to support, someone to talk to before it gets too big and to make it as easy as talking to a friend.
Ami offers counselling and therapy sessions on messaging platforms and calls itself the “first human-centric mental wellness platform in Asia”. Mental health has been hidden and stigmatised in Asia because mental illness was viewed as a personal weakness.
“Reframing mental health as ‘mental wellness’ to make the narrative around mental health more proactive for individuals who want to adopt a healthier lifestyle.”
7/ Food
All activities involving our food system's production, processing, transport, and consumption are super complex. The global food system does not work well today: the number of hungry people in the world has increased substantially, and the future does not look good.
The global food system is pushing the Earth system beyond the boundaries of sustainability. To live within limits, we must change our diets and how we grow and produce our food.
The three pioneers are seeing the impact of climate change on our food systems; they advocate adapting our diet, setting up systems that support the vulnerable and creating transparency in the supply chain so it can be judged and trusted.
Cooking Sections
Becoming a climavore
The turner prize-nominated art collective Cooking Sections wants to change the way people think about food. Culinary choices are shaping the world, and becoming a climavore is a form of eating that responds to human changes in the planet's climate. Climavore dishes are made with ingredients that improve soil and water quality and cultivate marine habitats. The main thing that one needs to do is avoid eating beef and lamb.
Founders Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe describe it as food for the new seasons of the climate emergency. Different from carnivore, omnivore, locavore, vegetarian, or vegan diets, climavore is an alternative that seeks to build regenerative food networks. This might mean a more flexible approach, for example, shifting to drought-resistant crops in a period of water scarcity.
Reframing our diets has geopolitical and economic implications. Research by Kearney, a report titled "Dawn of the Climavores" concluded that by 2030, the climate will guide humanity's daily food choices.
Elijah Addo
Who will feed the vulnerable?
Founder of the Food For All Africa food bank, Elijah Addo, says he has two core missions: reducing hunger and eliminating food waste. Since 2015 the food bank has distributed around 3 million meals. The war in Ukraine has disrupted the global food market and could worsen shortages, hunger, and political instability in Africa.
With food prices up an annual 30 per cent in May of 2022, he is finding more and more people are turning to his food truck, including those with jobs and homes.
About 40 per cent of ingredients are unsold stock from supermarkets, wholesalers and farmers that would otherwise end up in landfills. Access to food is essential for building a robust, healthy social system in Africa.
Markus Mutz
Food supply chain transparency
The global supply chain needs innovation, systems have become very complex, and people want transparency and traceability. Given the option, few would choose to buy products that harm the Earth, yet it is nearly impossible to know how most consumer goods are made or where they are sourced from.
Food transparency can help the planet. To create trust and transparency, OpenCS uses data science and machine learning to verify sustainability or ethics claims about individual products.
Next, they trace the movement of products along supply chains and store the information on the blockchain. And last, they share the stories and information with consumers in exciting and engaging ways, using new technologies and connectivity to create greater connection.
8/ Climate & energy
The next phase of human civilization is one that is both sustainable and creates a healthy environment for people. Changes in how we produce and use energy can significantly impact human health and affect air and water quality and other measures of environmental quality. Energy technologies are changing rapidly, improving efficiency and environmental sustainability.
If we do not take further action to stop the climate impacts we are already experiencing, the planet is likely to see global temperatures rise by 2-4 °C (3-7 °F) by the end of the century, making large parts of the Earth inhabitable.
Change is slow, and problems are big, complicated and interconnected. Our three pioneers create change by speaking up and sharing their visions and ideas with the world or by quietly and determinedly changing a system that has been in place for years. The road ahead can be a u-turn, a sharp change of direction that ensures a better quality of life.
The Coastal
Exploration Company
Reimagining maritime transport
Coastal Exploration Company’s founder Henry Chamberlain leads the charge for low-carbon deliveries along the UK east coast. In 2011 Henry Chamberlain discovered a traditional crab boat and one of the last remaining whelk boats and renovated them. The sails were hand-made by a local artisan craftsman.
The slow transportation company promotes local produce, supports independent companies, restores traditional boats and transports goods by harnessing wind power. From the ship, local honey, beer and wine crates are offloaded and biked to local stores.
“Everything feels quite tenuous in the world right now. But out here on the water, with the sails up and the engine off, it feels like we’ve stepped back in time and sometimes you need to look back to move forwards.”
Samela Sateré Mawé
Indigenous activist
Samela Sateré-Mawé, a 24 old indigenous activist, is the daughter of the leader Sonia da Silva Vilacio, of the Sateré-Mawé people, from the Andirá-Marau Indigenous Land, in the lower Amazon River. Samela posts videos on social media to share her concern for the environment and the rainforest and help her people.
She has one guiding belief; if the rainforest dies, so will her Amazon tribe. Indigenous people are the best guardians of the forest because they depend on its biodiversity to survive. She sees that the colonizing process causes the erasure of traditional people's identity, culture, and language. Passing on the traditions to the next generations is essential to avoid historical erasure.
“Indigenous people are an extension of nature, and nature is an extension of us. When Indigenous People are born, we are born activists because we have always been fighting, for our culture, our language, identity, and territory, and these struggles go hand in hand with the fight for the environment.”
Lex Hoefsloot
Clean power
Lex Hoefsloot is the CEO and co-founder of Lightyear, a tech company on a mission: to create clean mobility for everyone. They presented the Lightyear One, the world’s first fully solar-powered four-wheel-drive electric car.
The CO2 footprint of the Lightyear One is five times smaller than that of an average electric car. The car has 5 m2 of solar cells on the roof; you can charge the battery and drive the vehicle. The Lightyear One has a long-range battery; even at night, it can go 725 Km.
“The electricity of an electric car comes from fossil fuels. This is why we want to renew the whole system, and put the infrastructure inside this car to generate energy directly.”
You can download the PDF of the report here