People Fixing the World

People can’t resist a prize, especially when there’s money to go with a medal, and for hundreds of years that basic human urge has been used to push humanity forward. When you focus minds and money towards a simple target, incredible things can happen - from the clock that won the Longitude prize money in the 1700s to the spacecraft that won the XPRIZE in 2004. Are there any problems that a big enough prize cannot solve?Producer & Reporter: William KremerPhoto Caption: Pilot Mike Melvill standing on Space Ship One, which went on to win the Ansari XPRIZE Photo Credit: Getty Images This programme uses a sound effect created by Freesound user bone666138Correction: Since our interview with Marcus Shingles was recorded, he has stepped down as CEO of XPrize

Loneliness and isolation can trigger a host of other problems, particularly for our health. But a town in Somerset, in the United Kingdom, appears to have taken a big step towards alleviating the problem. A team in Frome has implemented a handful of simple ideas – getting people to talk about the problems they face and finding ways for them to re-engage with family, friends or social clubs – and they believe it is having a dramatic effect. The cost of emergency admissions in Frome has fallen steeply, while it rises across most of the UK. We visit the town to meet the ‘connectors’ driving the project, and the people they have helped.Presenter: Nick HollandPhoto caption: Susan Redding Photo credit: BBC

**This episode is a repeat from 23 January 2018**Naomi is not your average teacher. For one thing, she is only six months old. But in many schools across Canada babies like Naomi are a regular feature at the front of class. It is because of an education programme called Roots of Empathy, which is designed to encourage kids to be kinder. The idea is that because a baby cannot explain and externalise how it is feeling, children learn to recognise and identify the baby’s emotions, and become more emotionally astute themselves. It has been proven to reduce bullying. People Fixing the World visits a school in Toronto to see how it works.Reporter: Harriet Noble Presenter: Tom CollsPhoto Caption: Baby Naomi Photo Credit: BBC

Space is littered with junk – some pieces as small as a fleck of paint, and some as large as a London bus. So much of it is orbiting the Earth, in fact, that it poses a danger to future missions. But how can space be cleaned up? One way could be to catch the junk in a net, or to use a harpoon to grab it. A team in Surrey, in the UK, are launching a special spacecraft to find all of this out. Reporter: Nick Holland Presenter: Dougal ShawImage: Stock illustration of space debris Credit: Getty Images

Being homeless is extremely bad for your health. Homeless people end up in hospital far more often, and when they get there their condition is often serious. We visit a London hospital to see how one innovative healthcare charity is rethinking caring for the homeless – and how a hospital visit can be an opportunity to do far more than just patch a patient up and send them on their way. Presenter: Tallulah Berry Reporter: Tom Colls Producer: Ammar EbrahimImage: Gary Spall (BBC)

One of every five bird species could be extinct within the next century. Whether it’s down to the shiny glass office blocks materialising all over cities or the trawlers sailing ever-further out to sea to feed our growing population, our birds are seriously under threat. This episode looks at two particular successes when it comes to helping the world’s feathered friends: how Toronto has become a world leader in making cities bird-friendly, and how a group of enterprising conservationists has almost eliminated the deaths of albatrosses as a result of deep-sea fishing.Presenter: Tom Collls Producer: Harriet NobleImage: Pair of albatrosses Credit: ShutterstockCORRECTION: In this programme we say that two buildings in Toronto where bird collisions were high lost court cases and had to be adapted. In fact they did not lose the court cases. The charges were dismissed but as a result of the trial bird-safe markers were applied to sections of the buildings.

More than $20bn is spent on chewing gum around the world each year. A lot of that gum will end up stuck to the streets. That's why gum is the second most common kind of street litter after cigarette materials. In the UK councils spend around £50m each year cleaning up the mess. But British designer Anna Bullus had an idea - what if the sticky stuff could actually be recycled and turned into useful objects? Presenter: Harriet Noble Reporter: Dougal ShawPhoto caption: Shoe sole made of chewing gum Photo credit: BBC

Social media and messaging apps play a role in the extremist “radicalisation” of individuals. Tech companies have tried to get better at identifying extremist content and taking it down, but some specialists advocate an alternative approach – to use these platforms to engage with extremists one-to-one, to confront them and talk them round.Last year, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in London organised hundreds of conversations on Facebook messenger between activists and those expressing extreme Islamist and far-right sympathies. World Hacks has been given exclusive access to their report.This experiment raises many moral and practical questions. Do those posting extreme views online still have a right to privacy? At what point do we judge someone as suitable for this kind of intervention? And what exactly is the best way to start a conversation with an extremist?Presenter: Elizabeth Davies Producer: William KremerPhoto credit: Colin Bidwell (BBC)CORRECTION: In this programme, we say that counter-conversations were part of Facebook’s Online Civil Courage Initiative (OCCI). It was in fact a separate project, also funded by Facebook.

An app in Greece is helping people donate their leftover drugs to people who can't afford to buy them. So far the system has helped to recover and redistribute 13,000 boxes of medicine. Donors use the software to scan a unique code on the side of their boxes of unwanted drugs. The app automatically uploads details of the medication to a central database. They're then taken in by the country's network of social pharmacies where they're then given out to unemployed and homeless people.Reporter: Nick Holland Presenter: Harriet Noble

You’re standing on a stage, blinded by a spotlight trained on your face, knees weak, hands sweaty. Someone from the audience calls out a random word and you have to immediately react and come up with an amusing sketch or skit. This is improv, the unscripted theatre form that seems like it would cause rather than cure anxiety. But across North America people with the mental health condition are signing up for special “Improv for Anxiety” courses where the techniques and practices of the stage art are used to boost confidence. Producer: Harriet Noble Presenter: Tom Colls Photo Credit: BBC