In this episode of 'Valuable Conversations', MPA Alumni Justin Beirold and Coralie Gervaise from UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose discuss the importance of imagination in the public sphere with ‘renegade scientist’, Phoebe Tickell. Tickell, who has a background in microbiology, talks about her journey into systems thinking and her fascination with how science, governance, and economic systems impact our worldviews. Through her organization, Moral Imaginations, Phoebe aims at...

Welcome to Valuable Conversations with the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. In this episode, MPA Alumni Justin Beirold and André Ribeiro Coutinho talk to Venkat Ramaswamy, Professor of Marketing at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. Venkat is a globally recognized thought leader, idea practitioner, and eclectic scholar with wide-ranging interests in innovation, strategy, marketing, branding, IT, operations, and the human side of the organization....

Welcome to Valuable Conversations with the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. On this episode, MPA alumni Justin Beirold sits down with Ph.D. candidate Nai Kalema. If you have been following this podcast, you heard Nai as co-host on several episodes, including our conversations with George the Poet, George Aye, and Damon Silvers. But today is all about Nai. Nai is a brilliant scholar and practitioner, who has been working for years on topics including global development, innovation,...

Welcome to Valuable Conversations with the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. On this episode, Ph.D. student Nai Kalema and MPA alumni Justin Beirold talk to IIPP Visiting Professor of Practice, Damon Silvers. For over 30 years, Damon has been a leading voice in the US labour movement. He tells Justin and Nai how he got involved in labour activism during the dining hall worker strikes and anti-apartheid protests when he was an undergraduate at Harvard. He talks about how the...

Welcome to Valuable Conversations with UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. On this episode, Ph.D. student Nai Kalema and MPA alumni Justin Beirold sit down with George Mpanga - aka George the Poet.  George the Poet is an artist and activist from North West London. He is well known in the UK and beyond for his politically and socially powerful poetry, spoken word, and rap. In 2019, he became the first person outside the United States to win a Peabody Award for his podcast, “Have...

Welcome to Valuable Conversations with the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. In this episode, MPA alumni Gwen Casazza and Justin Beirold talk to IIPP’s fearless leader, Mariana Mazzucato. Like many people at IIPP, Gwen and Justin came to the institute in large part because of Mariana and her ideas. Mariana is one of the most influential economists in the world, and as a result, there are hundreds of podcasts, YouTube videos, interviews, and lectures featuring her. We decided that...

Welcome to Valuable Conversations with the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Today’s guest is Rowan Conway, our instructor for the MPA module Transformation by Design. MPA alumni Níckolas Laport and Justin Beirold talk to Rowan about her circuitous journey to becoming a renowned expert in strategic design and public policy. We discuss her education and early career, and how she got involved with the London Olympics in 2012. We also talk about her work as Director of Innovation...

Welcome to Valuable Conversations with the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Today’s guest is the legend herself, Dr. Carlota Perez. MPA alumni Teresa Miquel and Justin Beirold talk to Carlota about her life and work. We discuss her journey from architecture to economics (both heavily male-dominated fields), and how she began to formulate her theory of techno-economic paradigms. We also talk about how her theories apply to today’s world, with a particular emphasis on Latin...

Welcome to Valuable Conversations with the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Today’s guest is Wolfgang Drechsler. MPA students Maria-Nikol Stoykova and Justin Beirold talk to Wolfgang about his life and work. We discuss how he got into public policy, his interest in non-western public administration, and the complicated history of non-western PA in Nikol’s home country of Bulgaria. We also talk about Wolfgang’s recent advocacy on protests by civil servants in Myanmar, and his...

Welcome to Valuable Conversations with the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. In our first episode, MPA students Elisa Cadelli and Justin Beirold talk to Professor Kate Roll. Kate is the instructor for the MPA module “Grand Challenges and Systems Change”. We talk about her adventures conducting PhD field research on a motorcycle in Timor-Leste, how she got interested in the politics of innovation, and some of her recent work on the gig economy. Guest Bio: Dr Kate Roll is a...