Undesign tries to untangle today's big social issues

Undesign, a new weekly podcast on untangling the world’s wicked problems, launched today. Created by strategy and design consultancy DrawHistory, each episode explores complex issues, from counterterrorism to sustainable tourism, and reveals insights on how people can redesign a more inclusive society. In its inaugural season, the podcast is hosting guests from organisations such as Change.org, Wikipedia, and the United Nations.

“Undesign” will deliver eight episodes with leading thinkers and doers from diverse sectors to open up new perspectives and encourage new ways of thinking. Guests share findings from multi-year research, personal anecdotes, and behind-the-scenes stories. “As a consultancy in the social change sector, we often connect with people doing impactful work and we get to have so many stimulating conversations with them. We want to democratise this valuable knowledge by inviting people to join us and listen in. By doing this, our hope is that people pursuing change will be able to better engage with social issues in the ways that are most meaningful to them,” says Kosta Lucas, Host of “Undesign” and Head of Community Practice at DrawHistory (pictured above).

Undesign is a podcast on untangling the world’s problems and redesigning its futures. Guests and topics in Season 1 include:

• Episode 1 How does counterspeech prevent online extremism? Erin Saltman, Director of Programming for the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism and formerly Facebook’s Head of Counterterrorism and Dangerous Organizations (MENA)
• Episode 2: Why is participating in free knowledge important? Zack McCune, Director of Brand for the Wikimedia Foundation, parent nonprofit of online encyclopaedia Wikipedia and other related free knowledge projects.
• Episode 3: Is sustainable tourism a zero-sum game? Edmund Morris, Founder at Equator Analytics, a consulting firm for sustainable tourism, and formerly an international development consultant with USAID Jordan.
• Episode 4: Is nationalism distorting our sense of identity? Farida Fozdar, Associate Professor and sociologist from The University of Western Australia with a research focus on migration, race and ethnicity, racism, and nationalism.
• Episode 5: Can digital activism create enduring change? Emmy Suzuki Harris, Asia Regional Director for Change.org Foundation, the philanthropic initiative of Change.org amplifying the impact of digital activism for the petitions platform.
• Episode 6: How do we use social media to influence good? Nadir Nahdi, Founder at BENI, a storytelling and content platform addressing social issues, and a YouTube “Creators for Change” Ambassador.
• Episode 7: What can genuine Indigenous empowerment look like? Luke Pearson, Founder at IndigenousX, a 100% Indigenous owned and operated media, consultancy, and training organisation for Indigenous writers and creatives.
• Episode 8: How do we move beyond the ‘black tile’ in the fight for racial justice? Fadzi Whande, Founder at Whande Group, a consultancy and program development organisation for diversity and inclusion, and Senior Programme Officer (Diversity and Inclusion Adviser) at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"Many of the world’s issues are complex with no clear answers — but if there’s one thing we learned from our guests, it’s that solving these wicked problems will be a group effort,” says Jeffrey Effendi, Founder at DrawHistory. “Oftentimes, we are the ones connecting the dots with clients as strategists and creatives, but we genuinely believe that everyone can be designers when it comes to our world’s future. We can’t wait to hear what insights, themes, and throughlines people will uncover for themselves with Undesign to inform their work better.”

The first episode of “Undesign” is now available.

About DrawHistory

DrawHistory is a strategy and design consultancy whose mission is to design new futures for people who need tomorrow to be better than today. DrawHistory has worked with over 150 organisations, from UNICEF to Population Services International and Multicultural NSW, on design research, brand initiatives, and digital transformation projects.

About Undesign

Launched by DrawHistory, a strategy and design consultancy in Australia, Undesign is a series of conversations with leading thinkers and doers in our community who have dedicated themselves to tackle big social challenges and make the world better through their work. In each episode, we untangle a problem and get their insights on how we can redesign a better, more inclusive society.