Mixtapes

Here we are. Season 2. I am very enthusiastic about this new podcast series and am looking forward to hearing what you think about it. As a quick reminder, from now on, we are going to increase our focus on paradigm shift - beyond “just change making”. And shifting the paradigm starts by changing the language we use, and the stories we tell as change makers.

In this second episode of Summer Reflections, you will gain further insights about the future of the show and hear from a first project that was born out of the Cosmic network. The future holds promising opportunities for the Cosmic community!

Do you experience things deeply? In a world where opportunities for immediate gratification are everywhere, I wanted to share an interview that will help us take a step back and recall what true commitment looks like, and why it’s worth pursuing in both your personal and professional lives.

I’ve always had a fascination for them, knowing they are at the very top of their game, able to coordinate a movement of 80 expert musicians and deliver a performance that is not only extremely precise, coordinated and tight, but one that can also take audiences into another dimension. We must be able to learn something from these guys!?

Across cultures, people don’t laugh about the same things. Can dramatic events be made fun of? Where is the limit? How to handle black humour? And what can satire do for social change? "We are making some upgrades to the podcast production and publishing processes so we are rebroadcasting some of our most popular episodes from this first part of the year."

We are making some upgrades to the podcast production and publishing processes so we are rebroadcasting some of our most popular episodes from this first part of the year. As the new composition of EU institutions is taking shape, I recalled this great discussion with ex-VP of the European Parliament Heidi Hautala, in her kitchen, after a long winter day in Brussels. If you haven’t heard it yet it’s a good moment to dive in.

It’s a positive story. Across the Amazon, alliances of indigenous people are becoming more and more effective. Infrastructure projects are being opposed, international law is being harnessed and we even see governments facilitating a more sustainable vision for the sacred lands that hold so much of the Earth’s biodiversity and vital functions.

What does it mean to be human? And what if emojis are taking over? The development model of our societies clearly involves ethnocide: we kill languages and we kill cultures. Are we paying attention? How much does diversity of languages actually matter? In Cosmic #23, we started a quest exploring what connects languages, culture & power. In this episode, I take a deeper dive with someone who lived a unique range of experiences with the most remote communities on the planet.

The rest is taking over the West. This week I learnt that change in emerging markets is to a great extent driven by entrepreneurs and startups who are shaking markets from the bottom up, often threatening industry and public services with product and service disruptions that simply do a better job than what established players have offered so far. Even NGOs can see the rug pulled from under their feet. There must be a reason for it!

How are you thinking around risk? Are you a high-risk high-reward kind of person? And what if you had only a limited amount of time to achieve the impossible? This type of questions becomes very real when looking at climate change. If 10 years is all we have to reverse the destructive trend we initiated, shouldn't we be getting out of the safe zone and fundamentally rethink the rulebook?

Really? An episode about psychedelics? Yes. There are plants that we have been taking for milliners and that we don’t know how to deal with anymore. As we are standing at a moment in time where expanding our consciousness is fundamental to our survival, it is hard not to cover consciousness expanding substances. Not an easy topic because there is a lot of confusion going on, it’s controversial and the space is facing many challenges:

It was time to talk about money. With this episode, I am opening a discussion about where funding for impact comes from, and how to unleash its true potential. Needless to say this will take more than one interview: there is a lot to discover on how philanthropy, impact investment, public funds and other financial schemes work, and what needs to improve if we are to get things back in order on our Blue Planet.

“This could be me”. When looking at the refugee crisis and witnessing the constant inflow of asylum seekers across the European continent, the human mind easily falls into stigmatization. We eventually let in the emotions media and politics seek to create in us and we get captivated in a way that is highly unproductive.

What is your relationship with coffee? Millions of people around the world work blood, sweat and tears so we can all enjoy this one cup of magic potion every morning. Truly, most of us have some kind of addiction to the coffee moment. This one cup is subject to much debate - guilt sometimes - and dreams, more and more. The world of coffee is changing and I wanted to give it proper attention to find out what learnings we can draw from what turned into a key commodity on financial markets.

“I never realised what was on the walls was so deep”. Their writing is on the walls. We pass in front of it everyday. Tags, calligraphy, “graffiti” (as the mainstream refers to it) or other forms of street art that sometimes disrupt our neighborhoods, trains and public spaces. Most of us don’t really pay attention, others call it vandalism, and just a few truly understand what it has to offer.

Do you experience things deeply? In a world where opportunities for immediate gratification are everywhere, I wanted to share an interview that will help us take a step back and recall what true commitment looks like, and why it’s worth pursuing in both your personal and professional lives.

We didn’t agree on everything, but it was good fun! This conversation was a good way to start digging into the vast & complex world of food safety and agricultural systems, also touching on career trade-offs and purpose. Jessica works as a researcher in communications at Purdue University in Indiana, United States. She recently edited a book combining the perspective of 17 academic voices from her sector, the typical minefield I love to get myself into.

I made a deal with Andreina: one day we will host a big party in a culturally rich, vibrant and healthy Venezuela to celebrate how far the Venezuelan people have come since 2019. Right now, the situation is more than critical, as you may know. This episode is not about re-doing the regular media coverage that the crisis is getting. It's the story of creative people smuggling medical supplies into the country while humanitarian aid is blocked and often repressed.

We got kicked out of the place! I think they understood we were here to tell the truth…. But before this group of congress executives came to remove us, we were talking about how hard it is to operate in an industry that is all about selling new products that break, instead of designing them for durability and repairability.

“If government and business don’t have a solution, maybe the people should take over?”. On September 15th last year, this woman and her team moved 17.8M people in 157 countries to participate in the biggest ever civic action against waste – World Cleanup Day. Through a 36-hour epic wave of cleanups on beaches, rivers and other polluted environments, communities across borders and cultural divides sent a strong message to the world by taking a symbolic step towards green stewardship for systemic c