Design Influence

Host Isabelle Swiderski sits down with Meaghan Kennedy, founder of Orange Sparkle Ball, an innovation consultancy focused on public-private partnerships to explore the role communities / networks / ecosystems can serve as a supportive framework for change.

“What if we thought of the Bronx as an economy of scale? And what if we try to create a plan for the borough that actually brings all of us in, where we share a vision, where we share in leadership, and where the wealth and capital is owned by us and bred by us? So the simple phrase is: what if we ran it?”—Michael Partis

Host Isabelle Swiderski sits down with Michael Partis, current Executive Director of the Red Hook Initiative and previously ED of the Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative to discuss the making of the Bronx-wide plan and what it takes to build economic democracy in a borough that’s been underestimated and underfunded but never gives up on its people and its values.

This episode features April De Simone, a transdisciplinary practitioner working at the intersection of architecture, planning, and systems thinking. She collaborates with different communities across the country, bringing to light the lasting impacts of redlining, urban renewal, and gentrification.

What are new ways to explore housing as a key node in ecosystems underpinning community fabric and the reinvention of democracy? How might we consider where we live as one aspect of our entire experience and health? How can under-represented voices finally be heard and valued to co-create equitable systems and shared value?

April shares insights related to her collaborative experiences surfacing, reframing, and dismantling intentionally designed systems of inequity and, how, through this reimagining, we might, somehow, find a new path to democracy.

Sana Kapadia, director of strategy at 2X Global, sits down with host Isabelle Swiderski to talk about the current state of gender lens investing and the resources and approaches that support the people and partnerships behind the work.

This episode features Vicki Saunders, founder of Coralus (formerly SheEO) based in Toronto. Coralus now operates in 5 countries and through the annual contribution of individual activators, provides interest-free loans and, crucially, a community of support, to ventures led by women- and non-binary folks. Over 140 ventures tackling the world’s to-do list have been taken in and gone on to grow their impact.

Vicki shares her insights from 20+ years spent exploring the conditions that allow individuals to thrive and what it takes to imagine and co-create a new solution for women to fund each other. How might we all show up? What are our responsibilities, as individuals or organisations committed to social justice, to not only acknowledge these tools for building a more equitable economy, but to actively support their expansion and adoption?

This episode, the last in Season II, features Darrell Schuurman, co-founder and CEO of the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. 

The CGLCC is a coalition of LGBTQ2S+ businesses, government, corporate and community partners advocating for change to make a more inclusive Canadian economy possible. Darrell sheds some light on the evolution of the organization as it navigates its domestic role and its growing impact in other countries.

This episode features Sarah Burgaud who leads Programs and Partnerships at StartOut, a national US 501c3 organization supporting LGBTQ+ founders. StartOut’s mission is to accelerate the growth of the LGBTQ+ community to drive its economic empowerment, building a world where every LGBTQ+ entrepreneur has equal access to lead, succeed, and shape the workforce of the future.

After 5 years with the not-for-profit, Sarah shares her insights on building lasting partnerships and what has made the pandemic an accelerator to the far-reaching systems change work StartOut is leading in the U.S. and globally.

This episode features Al Ramsay, VP and Head of 2SLGBTQ+ & Black Customer Segments at TD Bank Group.

How do corporations navigate changing social mores and customer expectations and still successfully develop thriving corporate cultures founded on diversity of thought and service to customer? What does it mean to truly live values of inclusion and diversity?

Al Ramsay shares insights gleaned from over 15 years of supporting diverse communities, partners and teammates as part of one of the largest banks in North America.

This episode features Louise Chernin, an activist, LGBTQIA business and community leader, and the former CEO of the Greater Seattle Business Association. 

What does it mean to create shared value partnerships uniting small businesses, corporations, and government? How might we best redirect resources, technical support and money where it's most needed? 

Louise shares insights gleaned from 20 years on the front lines of community building and economic empowerment:

1. seeing opportunities for reinvention in crisis

2. supporting collective impact and systems change by making human connections

3. showing up as an ally as well as a leader to reach other economic sectors and communities within communities

4. embracing activism as a synonym for evolving, mutually beneficial, action-oriented partnership

This episode features Jordan Wolken, a sustainability student, social enterprise enthusiast, and the Global President of Bridges for Enterprise, a volunteer-led non-profit empowering early-stage impact startups. He is currently based in Paris, France. Social entrepreneurship is a complex undertaking at the best of times. The pandemic and overall volatility of the world has arguably made it exponentially more so in recent years. Yet, in the face of chaos, war, and rampant inequity, young people are stepping forward to take up the challenge. As he completes his Masters in Sustainability, Jordan shares his view of the promise of social entrepreneurship and of those committed to driving change through social innovation.

This episode features Arta Istrefi, an experienced private sector development adviser, ecosystem builder, Founder of Women Entrepreneurs Kosovo and a PhD candidate, based in Pristina. She is focussed on the growing role of entrepreneurship as an engine for economic mobility, particularly for women. We had a chance to discuss her findings on how the younger generation of female entrepreneurs in Kosovo is taking the lead in developing ambitious, thriving businesses with global aspirations.

This episode features Charles Montgomery, author of the book Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, and the founder of the consultancy of the same name.

We know cities are key economic drivers, often even outperforming their own countries in terms of growth. We also know that urbanization comes at a cost, particularly around transportation, affordable housing, and pollution but also around safety and access to public and green spaces. 

How can we design cities where we live together better and create ways for people to be more included, empowered, and to have access to resources to transform their lives? How do we even define, let alone measure, the most important dimensions of human happiness to translate this knowledge into designing urban spaces that are inclusive, safe, resistant to shocks, and conducive to wellbeing? 

This episode features Adriana Valdez Young, an urban design researcher and strategist based in New York City. Her perspectives on cities and how we live together seem particularly relevant in a time where our collective notions of private and public spaces have shifted. Where the global pandemic has meant that for the privileged who can perform their work remotely staying safe has been synonymous with staying home. 

How might we reimagine and co-create streets, spaces, and cities to help them fulfill their potential as the change machines Adriana knows they can be? How can we help people feel more included, empowered to transform their lives?

In this episode I speak with Delilah Agho-Otoghile, an Organizer, Political Strategist and Co-Founder of VoteSimple, a Texas based digital voter registration organization focused on registering young voters of colour and LGTBQ+ Texans. Delilah previously worked as State Director for Beto for America and Field Director for Stacey Abrams for Governor. Her work is dedicated to ensuring our democracy truly reflects progressive values and the striking diversity of her country—the United States.

In these times of change and unrest, how do we meet potential voters where they are? How do we ensure everyone’s vote is counted? How do we illustrate that a movement born in the street must continue on the ballot and in the courts to effect lasting change?

Delilah shares her insights garnered from years of experience on the ground mobilizing voters to show up for democracy.

In this episode, I speak with Mica Le John. Mica is a writer, technologist, and educator, and the CEO and co-founder of 2SWIM, a social messaging app with an emphasis on close connections and private communities. 2SWIM will be for everybody but is currently invite-only for POC-, LGBTQ+-, and/or womxn-centric communities, creators and brands (and their allies). 

How have online communities changed in the light of the COVID-19 crisis? 

How can we reimagine these virtual communities to moved them from being spaces for performance to spaces for engagement? 

Can social networks generate value for users instead of extracting it?

In this episode, I speak with Sean Condon, Manager Director at 312Main, a Vancity Community Foundation project in Vancouver's Downtown East Side, about his hopes for this project which reclaims a building heavy with our colonial history.  What happens when we open up avenues and physical spaces for dialogue, when we invite community and indigenous organisations to co-habitate and inspire each other? How do models of social enterprise come into play in addressing some of societies most blatant inequalities?

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Gavin Armstrong, Founder and President of Lucky Iron Fish Enterprise, a Canadian social enterprise tackling the issue of iron deficiency with a simple health innovation. 

I was in Lima supporting startup ecosystem builders and taking part in a training day for micro, small and medium enterprises. THE MSME event, organized by the Asia Pacific Foundation and Global Affairs Canada, featured a talk by Gavin. 

I met Gavin a year ago in Toronto and it felt like a small world to meet again in Lima. Over and over what came up in conversations that day was how difficult it can be to measure and express the multi-faceted performance of a social enterprise. Gavin seemed like a perfect candidate to dig deeper into that topic.

So what is it that makes the story and mission of Lucky Iron Fish Enterprise so compelling to partners, stakeholders as well as customers and beneficiaries? What ingredients does a social enterprise need to thrive?

In this episode, I speak with Sean Harvey, Founder of Sympónia Men and Co-Founder of GenderArc.  As a writer, speaker, and consultant he is exploring new narratives around gender balance in organizations to transform people, cultures, and systems. In a time that seems to favour headlines over dialogue and shouting over listening, Sean is trying to build bridges. How can we tame language to weaken the extremes of the gender binary? How do we facilitate compassionate conversations? And when and how do we even create space for them to occur?

In this episode, I speak with Dara Parker, Vice President of Grants and Community Initiatives at Vancouver Foundation, about the social profit landscape as she sees it.  What happens when the private and third sectors meet? What does collaboration mean for not for profits and how does social entrepreneurship fit in all of this?

In this episode, I speak with Keith Ippel from Spring Activator about ways of defining social entrepreneurship and how this way of doing business can fulfill its promise to make the world a better place.

Conversations about redesigning the world through entrepreneurship, philanthropy and new collaborations.