Experience Adelaide Podcast

Paige Greco kickstarted Australia's Tokyo 2020 Paralympic campaign by winning the very first gold medal of the games. The cyclist won the C1-C3 3000 metre individual pursuit before going on to win two more medals, both in the velodrome and on the road. Paige credits her move to Adelaide from Melbourne for her success in Tokyo, which culminated in her recently being named the Para Athlete of the Year at the SA Sport Awards.

It's not every day a brand-new school opens up in the middle of the CBD, but Botanic High did just that in 2019. SA's first vertical secondary school, it was designed to make a positive contribution to Adelaide's life and identity. In this episode, inaugural Botanic High principal Alistair Brown talks about the learning opportunities infused by city-life in the future-focused school.

Doctor Tom Nehmy is on a mission - he wants everyone to know the six core ingredients of wellbeing in the hope of preventing mental health issues. A clinical psychologist and director of the Healthy Minds Program, Tom is passionate about preventative psychology and teaching people to become mentally healthy, leading them to have more energy, focus and motivation. As heard at WellFest Adelaide, learn about the six ingredients from Tom and how an Adelaide lifestyle can help you achieve them.

­­­The new Hotel Indigo Adelaide Markets is the first hotel under IHG's boutique lifestyle brand to open anywhere in Australia. The hotel delivers a vibrant environment where local culture, produce and history is married with contemporary flair and style. Find out about little surprises hidden throughout the hotel as Marketing Manager Adam Warren shares why you should treat yourself to a staycation in the city.

Renew Adelaide does amazing work in our city. A not-for-profit organisation, Renew supports ventures by offering rent-free spaces in the CBD to give entrepreneurs a chance to trial unique business concepts - from hospitality and retail businesses, to model agencies and web design companies. Renew's CEO Andrew White explains their rent-free model, while LOC Bottle Bar owner Olivia Moore chats about how Renew Adelaide helped her turn a hairdressing salon into a bar.

Liz Walsh has spent her working life telling the stories of the people of Adelaide. Liz has been working as a journalist or editor at The Advertiser and Sunday Mail for almost 16 years. An award-winning journalist, Liz is now a Senior Sports Reporter and has been instrumental in increasing the coverage and profile of women's sport in Australia. We hear Liz's story of working in Adelaide, along with stories of those she's told.

Having lived and worked on major developments in the United Kingdom and the Gold Coast, Diane Dixon has chosen Adelaide to take on her biggest project yet. The State Project Lead for Lot Fourteen on North Terrace, Di looks after a globally connected business precinct that will foster jobs and skills in high growth industries and be an integral part of SA's innovation ecosystem. Hear Di chat about the magic happening at Lot Fourteen.

The Head of Marketing, Ticketing and Digital at the Adelaide Fringe, Ella Huisman has a big role to play in delivering what was the largest event in the Southern Hemisphere in 2021. The Fringe has evolved dramatically over the seven festivals that Ella has been involved in, with ticket sales having nearly doubling over that time. This episode will really open your eyes to the positive impact events like the Fringe have on the South Australian economy.

Wes Heddles and Adam Carpenter are distilling spirits right in the middle of Adelaide. They started Prohibition Gin on Gilbert Street in 2015 and in the years since, the distillery has gained a strong following and won many awards. Listen to Adam and Wes discuss how they have grown their business to now include a tasting room and a café, plus you'll hear them make a cocktail live on air. Wait until you hear the pop of the gin bottle opening!

Puzzling, joyous, surprising, fun - even a "a little bit icky": checking out a MOD. exhibition* - physically or virtually - is guaranteed to illicit some sort of emotional response and hopefully inspire inquiring minds to discover more.

Sitting at the intersection of science and art, the University of South Australia's Museum of Discovery is led by futurist Dr Kristin Alford. A 'Big Picture thinker', Kristin's interests lie in building people's capability to navigate the future and inspiring them to play a role in shaping it.

In this episode, Kristin explains MOD's approach to presenting its exhibitions to encompass both western and Aboriginal ways of thinking and, as the world slowly emerges from under COVID-19's cloak of uncertainty, how now is an opportune time to reflect on old systems and processes, and start re-imagining the future we want to move towards.

Since 2015, Caleb Maru has worked tirelessly, and mostly in his downtime from studying at the University of Adelaide, into getting various youth-focused social enterprises off the ground and making a positive difference to young people's lives.

Tackling subjects like gender equality, racism, mental health, and - in his latest project, Humanitee - issues facing young refugees and asylum seekers; Caleb seeks to provide platforms for young marginalised voices to be heard.

In this episode, this inspiring young man shares how Adelaide's "connected community" helped him bring Humanitee to life, and his hopes that the model can now be used by other socially-conscious organisations as a way to engage with young people, in a way that can raise funds for causes that they care about.

Personal experience, especially a traumatic one, can often be a catalyst for striving to make positive change in the world.
For Dr Michelle Perugini, her own struggle with fertility was a motivation for combining her passions for healthcare and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to improve pregnancy rates for women undergoing IVF.

The company she co-founded, Presagen, is already making life-changing inroads in the 'femtech' space - a term coined to describe the sector that uses technology to improve women's healthcare outcomes.

Michelle has big goals and intends to keep kicking them from her city-base at Lot Fourteen, where the COVID-19 situation has in no way dampened the "collective spirit" of Adelaide's thriving entrepreneurial community.

Damon Gameau found fame early on in his acting career with roles in award-winning films 'The Tracker' and 'Balibo' as well as popular TV series, 'How I Met Your Mother' - but behind the camera is where he's found his true path: inspiring hope through positive storytelling.

Following the success of his debut documentary 'That Sugar Film', Damon released '2040', tackling the subject of the effects of climate change with a refreshingly optimistic 'solutions-based' approach that shifts the narrative beyond the negative.

In this episode, Damon shares what gave him the courage to start telling his own stories, why he chooses hope as the way to bring more people into the climate conversation and the importance of 'dreaming' in shaping a better future for us all.

Forced by conflict to flee her birthplace of Afghanistan with her family when she was just two, first to a Refugee Camp before re-locating to Australia, Durkhanai Ayubi has grappled with questions around identity and belonging much of her life.

In Adelaide she has found the freedom to think, explore and seek out answers to many of those questions, as well as the opportunity to forge a connection, for herself and the broader community, back to her family's roots - through the sharing of Afghani food.

From uniformed days as a Royal Australian Air Force fighter pilot to co-founding Adelaide-based Nova Systems - Australia's largest privately owned defence company - and being appointed South Australia's first Chief Entrepreneur in 2018 - Jim Whalley has worn many hats throughout his career.

Right now his focus is firmly set on laying the foundations for a world-leading entrepreneurial environment across the state, where brilliant ideas have every opportunity to become thriving realities, generating commercial and community returns.

In this episode, Jim shares his personal journey to Adelaide, and the opportunity he believes we have here in South Australia to make entrepreneurship, as he puts it, "more accessible and more acceptable, and to have an engagement and support from the community."

Having been a spectator from the age of six, a performer, Artistic Director and - for the past three years - its Executive Director - Rob will exit the Adelaide Festival's stage after this year's diamond anniversary program.

In this episode, Rob reflects on his 45 year arts career and the changing cultural landscape in Adelaide he's had to navigate, and shares his views on why culture - in the same way as education and health - is so important to creating a strong, liveable and truly extraordinary community.

A history-making former MP, an aspiring poet and, in every pursuit - including her latest role as Access and Inclusion Coordinator for the 2020 Adelaide Fringe - Kelly Vincent is a tireless champion for people with disabilities and their right to be heard.

Kelly - who grew up with undiagnosed autism - shares how she turned to storytelling as a way of making sense of the world, and why her life's ambition is to break down the time-consuming barriers of 'bureaucracy, perception and misconception' faced by all minorities.

Mickey Kumatpi Marrutya O'Brien, or Uncle Mickey, is a Senior Aboriginal Man - a descendant of the Kaurna (Adelaide Plains) and Narrunga (Yorke Peninsula) people, and a passionate advocate for Aboriginal culture, language and history.

In this episode, Mickey shares and discusses the spiritual connection of the Kaurna people with Adelaide, and how the landscape of Adelaide, and the city's surrounds, tells the stories and history of the land; of two cultures connecting in one place, and his hope for greater recognition of Aboriginal people as scientists, farmers, and philosophers.

After 22 years at the helm of what has become Australia's greatest cycling race, the Santos Tour Down Under (TDU), Mike Turtur - Olympic Games' and Commonwealth Games' gold medallist, TDU founder and director, hands the reins to Stuart O'Grady at the end of the 2020 race. Career changes are a time for looking forward, as well as reflecting on past achievements and challenges. In this episode, Mike opens up about what ignited his lifelong passion for cycling, pushing through pain barriers to win Olympic gold, a nail-biting negotiation with a top German sprinter that potentially saved the TDU from being derailed after year one - and, of course, what comes next.