FutureHero Jessi Baker: Blockchain’s spies for good
Blockchain isn’t just about finance and Bitcoin, but when Jessi Baker started Provenance that wasn’t the case. That’s why her idea was considered crazy at first. The software company uses technologies like the blockchain to help businesses share truths about the people, places and materials involved in their products. Labelled as one of the UK’s ‘coolest female startup
FutureHero Agamemnon Otero: Dynamo of renewables
“If you want to be Che Guevara, stop walking around pointing to what’s bad. Want to be a true revolutionary? Rip up the paving slabs, plant a garden and cover your roof in solar panels.” In South London a Uruguayan-born, New York-raised community entrepreneur and artist is tackling fuel poverty with renewables – while catalysing
Adventures with FutureHero Gaia Vince in The Age of Humans
This year it will be ten years since environmental journalist and broadcaster Gaia Vince began her 900-day journey around the world to take stock of humanity’s impact on the planet. Back then she never expected to see the important changes now happening globally – the explosion of renewable energy production, the rise of electric vehicles, tariffs
FutureHero Nelly Ben Hayoun: Astronomical
Faster-talking than the speed of light, louder than a sonic boom and sparkier than a volcano, extreme ‘experience designer’ Nelly Ben Hayoun has simulated all of the above. From the safety of her East London pad, the French space enthusiast catapults us through her flights of fancy-made-real – including what to do if an asteroid
FutureHero Richard Ballard: Growing greens in bomb shelters
A microgreen-fingered hydroponic hero is proving that ‘zero km’ is possible – in London’s disused bomb shelters. With his groundbreaking subterranean farm Growing Underground, Richard Ballard demonstrates how plants don’t need sunlight and that urban agriculture can help tackle food scarcity. Located 100 feet (33 metres) under the streets of London in a disused World War II air raid shelter,
FutureHero Kate Raworth breaks down ‘Doughnut Economics’
In today’s world we are addicted to growth. That’s why renegade economist Kate Raworth wants to radically reframe the way we look at economics: “The goal of the 21st century economy should be to meet the needs of all within the means of the planet.” It’s an exciting challenge to ensure that no one falls short on
FutureHero Marco A. Attisani: Supercomputer creator
If you’re responsible for creating the “biggest solar powered computer in world” and it’s capable of delivering three fundamental services – clean water, electricity and the Internet – to the developing world, then you’ve probably got high ambitions. A generator that can supply a hat trick of the pillars of modern civilisation, Watly harvests the sun’s
FutureHero Tony Lovell: 5 billion hectares of hope
Cows are often the scape-goats (or scape-cows) for climate change; the methane-burping livestock animals have become confused with our management of them. By giving the animals a more holistic hook, carbon-canny cattle rancher Tony Lovell, co-founder of SLM Australia Livestock Fund, has raised a whopping $100 million to help to regenerate the billions of hectares of damaged
FutureHero Christine Fox: The Pentagon’s real Top Gun
Blazing a trail for other women, Christine Fox has held the highest rank ever for a woman at the Pentagon and was the inspiration for the Kelly McGillis character ‘Charlie’ in arguably the best film of the 80s… Top Gun (of course). The first female Deputy Secretary of Defense (Acting) in American history has flown in B-52s, escaped submerged
FutureHero Mark Stevenson: Stories from the future
There is no better time to reboot our world than right now, which means there is no better time to read the two bestselling books by ‘reluctant futurist’ Mark Stevenson. The pragmatic optimist tells stories of people doing things differently to meet humanity’s challenges in innovative and surprising ways. Part of a subset of people who think differently, Stevenson
