The Femme Futurists Society Podcast

Protopian World Building (ft. Monika Bielskyte)

Most of us are likely very familiar with the ideas of dystopia and utopia as framing for what the future might look like, but Monika Bielskyte would submit they are still two sides of the same coin. Instead, she wants us to consider the in-between space that embodies all of the living world and consciousness—nature and human—where a different narrative takes place; a Protopian future that embodies livable & inclusive visions and is ever evolving.
As a positive world builder, speculative designer and futurist, Monika has traveled and engaged with unfolding futures in more than 100+ countries - having left her homeland that no longer exists to explore the world that does. 
Being blessed (and cursed) with what she describes as “pathological curiosity”, her fascinating journey spans academia (CCA, CSM, Lund to name a few), to Hollywood (helping world-build the vision for Wakanda & working with directors like Ridley Scott), to time in Silicon Valley, where she experienced and witnessed dysfunctional and exploitative behaviors over and over again and realized the huge knowledge gaps among those shaping our current futures. 
Believing that there is a better way, she founded Protopia Futures, a platform for showcasing how transcultural, interdisciplinary and life-centric design approaches alongside disability and neurodivergence inclusion, can help us design a better world for most of humanity, and foster regenerative economies of the future. 
Monika is not only fascinating, but in spending time with her you quickly realize that her vision of a Protopian future is one we all need; and in our case, ended up wanting. 
Love what you hear? Please consider sharing, liking, commenting and subscribing to our podcast.
👩‍⚕️Learn more about Monika: https://za.linkedin.com/in/monikabielskyte👩🏻‍💻 Our Website: www.FemmeFuturists.com
Music from Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcend License code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY
 

A More Human Internet (ft. Mary Camacho)

Everything we do digitally is controlled or facilitated by third parties who then aggregate and monetize our data and interactions without any benefit to us. How then, do we build something that gives the person using it complete control? How do we create a more human internet?
 
Mary Camacho is CEO for Holo + Holochain, championing the integration and adoption of innovative peer-to-peer application infrastructure to facilitate truly independent communication that transforms how we interact digitally. Think of it as a blockchain alternative, only spectacularly better across the board; for energy consumption, for business applications and for the humans using it.
 
Heads up… this topic is pretty lofty but don’t be intimidated. Mary has an ability to clearly and simply describe what the next digital revolution looks like and by the end of our conversation you understand why it’s infinitely more appealing than what we have now. So the only question left to ask is, how fast can we get there?! 🤩💃🏻
 
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👩‍⚕️Learn more about Mary: https://www.holochain.org + https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryfcamacho/👩🏻‍💻 Our Website: www.FemmeFuturists.com
Music from Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcend License code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY

Sustainable Housing for Earth and BEYOND (ft. Melodie Yashar)

Episode #36: What if we told you that it’s possible to 3D print a house for around $7K and in the space of 24hrs - and not only is it possible - but entire communities are being built this way? You’d think it was pretty mind-blowing, right?
That’s exactly what Melodie Yashar and her team at ICON are focused on.
Engineering and visioning sustainable built environments on and off-world (we’re talking Mars + the Moon), she’s spearheading a shift not just in how we live, but how we think about what’s possible in the way we live. In this podcast our conversation ranges across:
… self-assembling cities
… space feminism
… the inherent rights of uncolonized worlds
… how she geeks out on new material & fabrication technologies
… and the essential role tiny robots play in all of this!
Her TED talk, ”How to Build for Human Life on Mars” has been viewed over 1.4 million times.    
Love what you hear? Please consider sharing, liking, commenting and subscribing to our podcast.
👩‍⚕️Learn more about Melodie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melodieyashar/
▶️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/Tizk3ifMf3A
👩🏻‍💻 Our Website: www.FemmeFuturists.com
Music from Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcend License code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY

From Wall-Street to Tackling BIG FOOD and Imposter Syndrome (ft. Robyn O'Brien)

Episode #35 has landed and we’re honored to introduce you to the beautiful, smart and deeply heart-centered Robyn O’Brien. Whether you know it or not, you’ve probably been impacted by her work transforming the food industry, after her life changed irrevocably when her daughter had a life-threatening reaction to food, that then turned into a movement, that then changed the entire food industry. Amazing.
 
In our conversation Robyn’s wisdom after wisdom became like a handbook from a wise friend and advisor, as we talk about everything from:
 
💃🏻 How courage is her personal mantra and the extraordinary changes that happen when you commit to being even 20% braver.
 
✨ How if you are out there driving change, fear will be riding shotgun, but fear can be an extraordinary North Star.
 
🔥 How vulnerability is a strength.
 
🙌🏻 The need to flip the script on imposter syndrome; especially because as women we are pushing against a system that was not, and is not, built for us.
 
🧡 And the massive economic advantages of the history-making transfer of $30 trillion (more than the national U.S. GDP) in wealth to women, by 2030. 
 
There is so much more we cover from being a producer on the just released documentary, Common Ground, to how she now has her sights set on the finance industry (look out!!!), so tune in and listen to get the full story… 
 
Love what you hear? Please consider sharing, liking, commenting and subscribing to our podcast.
 
▶️ Watch Us on YouTube
👩🏻‍💻 Visit Our Website at  www.FemmeFuturists.com
 
Music from Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcend License code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY

Radical Maternal Care. Anytime. Anywhere. with Astercare (ft.Lailah Kara-Newton + Fifi Kara)

Welcome to Episode #34. It is 100% unacceptable that globally, black women face a nine times higher risk of maternal death than their white counterparts, regardless of wealth. And that the United States is the most dangerous and expensive high-income country for childbirth, especially for Black and Indigenous women.
 
💫 Lailah Kara Newton, an MD with a successful UK practice specializing in women’s health who experienced her own childbirth trauma, and Fifi Kara, a fulbright scholar and B2B investment entrepreneur who supported Meta's Health & Fitness team, decided to take their experiences and change that, once and for all.
 
🙌🏻 This dynamic duo put all their heart and energies into four years developing an app that provides continuous at-home monitoring for mothers pre and post-natal, 24/7 support, and accessible clinical guidance = radically better, women’s health game changer.
 
🔥 Fifi and Lailah represent a new vanguard of women who will not sit on the sidelines and wait for change. Instead, they’re doing something about it.
 
Such an honor to speak with these two trailblazers!! We invite you to listen to this amazing origin story and journey toward globally changing women’s health - and if your provider/doula/midwife/friends haven’t yet heard of them - please share. You could literally save a life. 
 
👩‍⚕️Learn more about Astercare: https://astercare.com/
▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mjunn8kEzQ
👩🏻‍💻 Our Website: www.FemmeFuturists.com
 
Music from Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcend License code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY

Employing 1 Billion Farmers to Solve a Planet-Wide Problem (ft. Drea Burbank)

Episode #33: In our Femme Futurist Video Podcast series with extraordinary women, we explore how we can better develop high-tech for low resource environments to improve global health with Drea Burbank. Drea Burbank, is the CEO of Savimbo as an MD-Technologist & Serial Entrepreneur with her work ranging in things like Web3 to stem-cells.
Learn more about the Femmes at Femmefuturists.com
Learn more about Drea and Savimbo at Savimbo.com

Future-Fit Decision Making (ft. Joana Lenkova)

In our Femme Futurist Video Podcast series with extraordinary women, we discuss the future of childhood and future fit design with Joana Lenkova. Joana Lenkova is the Futurology Director for the Lego Group and founder of Futures Forward, a strategy and innovation consultancy focused on building impactful, resilient business models to help shape and inspire positive future narratives.  
***All opinions are Joana's own and do not reflect the LEGO Group.***
Learn more about Femmefuturists.com
Learn more about Joana Lenkova

Deep Self Design (ft. Sun (Kagami) Brown)

Episode #31 in our Femme Futurists video podcast series with Sun (Kagami) Brown, where we talk about: Deep Self Design. The Doodle revolution. Inner engineering. Gamestorming. Collaboration Literacy. Juicy messiness. Being a best friend to yourself. And my favorite: shoshaku jushaku (which in Zen Buddhism means; one continuous mistake). It would be easy to think of that last one as a negative, but in conversation with Sunni Brown you quickly learn that it’s a philosophy of “joy that trusts in productive discomfort”. 
These are just some of the directions our conversation takes.
Named one of the “100 Most Creative People in Business” and one of the “10 Most Creative People on Twitter” by Fast Company. Her TED talk has drawn over 1.6 million views and her work on visual thinking has been featured in every major U.S. publication including: The New York Times, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, WIRED, and Entrepreneur. She has been featured twice on CBS Sunday Morning and on The TODAY Show. 
And she is widely credited with the rise of #visualthinking (doodling!) as a tool for deeper inquiry and is #CEO of the Center For Deep Self Design.
Listen or watch and enjoy this rich conversation about the intersection of our inner and outer worlds and why a “good life is an inside job”.
Listen to Our Previous Conversations: 🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-femme-futurists-society-podcast/id1680532882 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7xr5S27ZG3DzoHkNsOtxFN
Learn more about Femme Futurists Society at https://femmefuturists.com/Learn more about Sun at http://nothingintheway.substack.com/
Music from Uppbeat:uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcendLicense code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY
#femmefuturists

Designing Creativity of the Future (ft. Brooke Hopper)

Episode #30: In our Femme Futurist Video Podcast series with extraordinary women, we explore the role of new technologies in creativity with Brooke Hopper. Brooke Hopper is Principal Designer for Machine Intelligence and Emerging Technologies at Adobe, working to deepen and enhance the creative process and allow all humans to more fully realize their creative visions. 
Learn more about the Femmes at FemmeFuturists.com
Learn more about Brooke Hopper

Feeding 65 Million People Per Day (ft. Joanna Lepore)

Episode #28: In our our Femme Futurist Video Podcast series with extraordinary women, we discuss future proofing one of the world’s best known brands with Joanna Lepore. Joanna Lepore is the Global Foresight Director for McDonald’s, leading the exploration of new capabilities globally by putting humans and sustainability at the center of their future visioning.
Learn more about the Femmes at FemmeFuturists.com
Learn more about Joanna Lepore at Looking-Outside.com