Kyra Choucroun
Based in London, Kyra Choucroun is an innovation & sustainable business researcher and consultant. She focuses on system innovation, strategic futures, engagement with Generation Y stakeholders and social enterprise. She is passionate about promoting the sustainable development agenda, and has a particularly strong interest in biodiversity and the political economy of development. Prior to joining SustainAbility, Kyra worked as a journalist and analyst for the Guardian newspaper, covering a wide range of environmental and social issues. She has also worked for Business in the Community, a business-led charity that promotes corporate social responsibility.
Kyra co-founded the Gopher Illustrated, a cultural magazine; she is the Social Innovation Ambassador for Sandbox, a global network for Gen Y leaders; she is a trustee of Mothers for All, a charity supporting AIDS orphans in Southern Africa; and she is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Why does Kyra think it’s important? “Epic and crucial, Think Act Vote offers us a collaborative and meaningful roadmap for the future we choose to create. There is nothing easy about it: it is meant to not only help us vocalise the future we choose to create, but how we can create it together.”
?!X: What’s the Future You Choose?
KC: I choose a future where creativity is common place, not exceptional. I choose a future where mistakes aren’t stigmatised, where we don’t lose the ability to be wrong and embrace it. I would like to see a future where we work – together – towards building a world that bears testament to the fruits of true collective creativity, innovation and responsibility.
?!X: What’s a ‘think’ to create this future?
KC: A ‘think’ to create this future would have to be Sir Ken Robinson’s incredible TED talk from 2007: “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”
His phenomenal manifesto, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, is also essential reading: he brilliantly argues the case for re-conceptualising how we think of our and our children’s abilities – and proposes a roadmap for how we might tackle the pace and nature of change in the world.
?!X: What’s an ‘act’ to create the future you choose?
KC: An ‘act’ to create this future would be anything that promotes and encourages true, collaborative creativity fit for a fast-changing, complex world: any act undertaken in earnest that challenges old, outdated Industrial Revolution assumptions about human capabilities. I would certainly volunteer with Hackney Pirates: an innovative education programme designed to foster creativity and innovation in young children – act to instill in children what I call “failure driven success,” getting comfortable in a state of perpetual beta whereby we never lose the ability to be wrong, embrace vulnerability in earnest and disenthrall ourselves from a closed, isolationist vision of creativity and innovation.
?!X: What’s a ‘vote’ to create the future you choose?
KC: Pledge allegiance to following your own true north, whilst ensuring you nurture your mind along the way. My one pledge would be Mindapples, an incredible social enterprise designed to help you take care of your mind through 5 daily simple activities. How do you like them apples?
?!X: Future Soundtrack – What song would you take with you into the future?
Caravan by Van Morrison, as performed with The Band in the Last Waltz, The Band’s last live performance, gives me the chills:
?!X: Can you share with us up to 5 weblinks that you find interesting and inspiring?
Inspired to tell us The Future You Choose? You can here.
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