The world is turned upside down, the streets are empty. Behind this seeming tranquility, there is a storm raging through our values and structures. This gives us the space to think about a complete ‘reset’. How can we restructure existing dysfunctional systems? In this new series, we will showcase the perspectives of a variety of thought leaders who will reflect on this present-day situation. Through the lens of their own area of expertise and with an emphasis on creativity. The corona crisis is, without a doubt, a crisis that is leaving behind a trail of victims. But which transformations will we be left within the aftermath? During these times, it is the creative thinkers who can visualise new scenarios and through hypothesising can develop new insights into our future.
Kees Klomp is a business advisor, writer, consultant, founding partner of THRIVE Institute, and a Buddhist. After the economic crisis in 2008, he noticed there wasn’t a noticeable shift in the way we acted as humans. According to Kees, this was partly due to corporate thinking where the focus is too much on profit only and too little on people’s well-being. As an alternative, he developed the concept of the Purpose Economy and ‘meaningful entrepreneurship’: a movement/development where the social profit of companies is valued equally as their business profit. Kees will share his vision on a more sustainable economy.
Joe Brewer is a complexity researcher, innovation strategist, experience designer, and serial social entrepreneur who brings a wealth of expertise to the adoption of sustainable solutions at the cultural scale. Among his notable achievements are the creation of an undergraduate degree program in Earth Systems, Environment and Society at the University of Illinois and design of new collaboration protocols for strategic communications among European NGO’s with WWF-UK and Oxfam, Great Britain. His experiences as a social entrepreneur and cross-disciplinary scholar weave together a combination of skills dedicated to open collaboration, interactive design, and empowered civic action for catalyzing change toward greater resilience in our turbulent world.
