World Changing Ideas

Rewind to our chat with Jason Ballard, CEO and co-founder of ICON, a digital construction company that 3D-prints houses... that might end up on the moon someday.

Rewind to Season 1 when we chatted with ofbyfor about an alternative way to structure democracy from elections to lotteries.

We’ve looked at a whole bunch of amazing ideas this season. We’ve met people tackling global problems, including rising temperatures, water shortages, rainforest destruction, and greenhouse-gas emissions. But one environmental challenge we can’t skip over is rising sea levels. Global warming has caused unprecedented levels of ice and glacier melt over the last few decades. No matter how much we reduce our carbon emissions, sea levels are on course to rise at least a foot by 2050. That’s a scary statistic even before we think about the fact that almost three-quarters of the world’s population live within 50km (or less than 1 mile) of the sea. On this episode, we dive into water homes—how they’re built and when we’ll be able to move into one! Koen Olthuis is the cofounder and principal architect of Waterstudio Grant Romundt is the cofounder and CEO of OceanBuilders

This week, we're taking a look at the brain and a world-changing idea that could overhaul how we approach brain surgery.A company called Synchron is investigating how you restore, treat, and map the electrical activities of the human brain. And they’ve developed the first brain-computer-interface implant in the United States. It’s called a Stentrode, and when the device gets implanted, it can allow severely paralyzed patients to control personal devices without using their hands.Producer Avery Miles sat down with Peter Yoo, Synchron’s director of Neuroscience, at last year’s Fast Company Innovation Festival to learn more about how this technology works.

We spend our whole lives living in human bodies, but even in 2023, there is so much that science doesn’t understand about how our body works, how it’s programmed, how it heals itself . . . or doesn’t. Despite all of our technological innovation, human life expectancy seems to have plateaued. In the U.S alone, it’s actually gone down for the past 2 years.Biohackers around the world are making it their mission to optimize the body for its longest, healthiest life possible. In today’s episode, we follow one woman’s journey as she finds out how to heal her body using modern technology that borrows from age-old practices. We also found out how one company is bridging the gender health gap, and how tiny robots could help locate tumors and dissolve blood clots before they became fatal. Emma Wheylin, video producer of Fast Company's "Future Me" biohacking series Alicia Chong Rodriguez, founder and CEO of Bloomer Tech Dr. Bradley Nelson, professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich

Protecting our most important resources is becoming a global problem that affects all of us. The impact of climate change and the demands of urban living are threatening so many of our essential sources of life. Water is one of the most precious commodities available to us. But we'll have to find some innovative approaches to collecting it. That's where fog catching comes into play. We also found out what one group is doing to protect the Amazon rainforest, its biodiversity and indigenous inhabitants. Jamila Bargach, executive director of Foundation Dar Si Hmad Tadzio MacGregor, co-founder of the Javari Project

Despite a dip in carbon emissions during the pandemic, the U.S is still the world’s second largest polluter. The country produced 5.6 bn metric tons of CO2 in 2022, and that’s up from last year.So who’s got some world-changing ideas when it comes to decarbonization? We’ve found three pretty cool characters this week. And each one of them has gone all in on the power of plants. Adam Taylor, CEO of Brilliant Planet, a company that grows massive amounts of microalgae on coastal deserts in order to store carbon at a grand scale. Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, cofounder and co-CEO of Notpla, which is using seaweed to take plastic out of packaging. Christian Kroll, founder and CEO of Ecosia, the internet search engine that will plant trees using people's searches.

There are lots of different definitions of what the Metaverse is or could be. At the moment, the whole thing is looking quite fragmented. You get all these buzzwords being thrown around like immersive, virtual reality, avatars and headsets, but it’s not really clear yet how this new virtual space will change the way we interact with each other.On today's episode, we chatted with two people who are tapped into the scene, and they gave us their insights. Cathy Hackl, founder and Chief Metaverse Officer at Journey Matt Navarra, podcaster and social media consultant

 In 2022, roughly 3 billion people, or one in every three people in the world, regularly played computer games, either on their phone, computer, or some kind of gaming console. Analysts predict that the video game market will bring in over $200 billion in 2024. If you think about it, people are wired to play games, it’s actually something that’s helped us evolve as a species.The Arsht Rockefeller Foundation has put together an initiative to share climate-change-resiliency solutions by 2030. Their goal: to reach one billion people. Video games have shown they not only bring people together, but also help mobilize collective action. But what about the environmental impact? We take a look at what digital games can cost the planet as well as the benefits of designing climate-resilient video games. Rosemary Mann leads video gaming strategy at the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. Chance Glasco is the creative director of Good Dog Studios and a nonresident senior fellow at the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. Juni Yeung is a music teacher, author, cultural historian, and interpreter. Ben Abraham is the founder of the research and consultancy group, AfterClimate, and the author of Digital Games After Climate Change. Marina Psaros is head of sustainability at Unity Technologies.

We have a recap of one of our favorite episodes from last year and what better way to kick off 2023 than talking about toilets? Enjoy!