The Solve Effect
The Solve Effect
Podcast Description
The Solve Effect is a podcast by MIT Solve that hosts leaders, visionaries, and barrier-breakers intent on wielding technology for good. Each episode explores the journeys of people rewriting the rules for global problem solving—from questioning the ethics of data to tackling bias in AI to applying traditional knowledge in the modern world. Join us in inspiring action to global problem-solving!
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The show covers a variety of critical topics focused on global problem-solving, including technology ethics, digital education access, and sustainability in the textile industry, with episodes highlighting personal stories like Khaled Kteily's mission to destigmatize male fertility and Katrin McMillan's approach to digital education in underserved communities.
The Solve Effect is a podcast by MIT Solve that hosts leaders, visionaries, and barrier-breakers intent on wielding technology for good. Each episode explores the journeys of people rewriting the rules for global problem solving—from questioning the ethics of data to tackling bias in AI to applying traditional knowledge in the modern world. Join us in inspiring action to global problem-solving!
Kumi Naidoo once helped lead a funeral for an iceberg.
Several hundred people gathered in Iceland to mourn something precious that had been with us for centuries and was never coming back. That single act of mourning generated more powerful coverage than almost any campaign from his six years leading Greenpeace. It taught him a lesson he’s carried ever since: facts aim at the brain, but movements are built by speaking to the heart, the body, and the soul.
On this episode of The Solve Effect, Hala Hanna sits down with Kumi Naidoo: human rights and climate justice activist, former head of Greenpeace International and Amnesty International, and now president of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. From organizing against apartheid as a teenager to building a global “artivism” movement inspired by his late son, the rapper Ricky Rick, Kumi shares what four decades of struggle have taught him about grief, purpose, and refusing to give up.
Tune in for a conversation all about:
Turning off the tap: Fossil fuels drive 86% of climate change, yet for 30 years we’ve mopped the floor without touching the faucet. Kumi makes the case for a binding global treaty to phase them out—in terms your auntie would understand.
Artivism in action: Why “Save Santa Claus” might have been a better banner than “Stop Arctic Destruction,” and how harnessing arts and culture can supply the thing our movements are missing most: imagination.
Participation as the antidote to despair: Whatever the question, the answer is community. Kumi explains why everyone—from single moms to art teachers—has a pathway into this fight, and how his sister Kay proved that the most invisible people often make the biggest contributions.
Joy as resistance: How do you tell the truth about a crisis without immobilizing people? And why is keeping your sense of humor a political act?
Full transcript available here.
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