Three World-changing Ideas from Emerson Collective’s Demo Day

With democracy at risk, the global economy wobbling, climate negotiations failing, and war testing the world’s resolve, a word began surfacing late last year in the opinion pages of major papers like The New York Times and the Financial Times to describe the state of things: polycrisis. A polycrisis, per the Cascade Institute, is “any combination of three or more interacting systemic risks with the potential to cause a cascading, runaway failure of Earth’s natural and social systems that irreversibly and catastrophically degrades humanity’s prospects.”

In the face of such bleakness, we turn to creativity and beauty, imagination and hope. As we enter 2023, our most incisive leaders understand that our immense challenges can be overcome if we’re audacious enough to push forward, together. Last week at Emerson Collective’s Demo Day 2022 event, 13 visionary problem solvers with expertise fighting the thorniest societal challenges spoke about their work, their visions for a more just world, and their triumphs. Ranging from a healthtech startup founder to a pathbreaking photographer to a voting rights attorney, every speaker challenged the audience to do more in the face of the polycrisis—and delivered messages overflowing with optimism and hope. After experiencing Demo Day 2022, allow us to suggest three words to counter the doomsayers: proximity, inclusivity, and audacity.

Recognizing each other’s humanity allows us to learn from one another’s wisdom. In that wisdom lies power. Voting rights attorney Marc Elias posed a simple question: why did voting in the midterm elections go smoothly despite the multi-pronged attack on voting rights? After two years of prominent politicians denying the outcome of the 2020 elections and the enactment of a multitude of laws designed to restrict voting rights, state and county courts—not the Supreme Court—delivered rulings that safeguarded the right to vote. Judge after judge, no matter their political persuasion, handed down decisions in favor of democracy. The reason? Whereas Supreme Court Justices remain largely isolated from the 350 million lives they impact, local judges make rulings that impact their friends and neighbors. “Only we can save our democracy,” Elias said. “The social fabric in our communities is power, and that power is strong, and it gets stronger, every time we work together.”

The physician Sri Shamasunder explained how that social fabric can literally save lives. His global healthcare organization, HEAL Initiative, asks medical professionals who practice outside their home communities to draw close to peers where they serve. “Our fellows create what I like to think of as noble friendships across their many differences–geography, language, role, rank,”Shamasunder said, “and these friendships are an antidote to apathy in a deeply unequal world.” When, for example, a doctor from Michigan works in partnership with a nurse from the community in Malawi, they can come to better understand the lived experience of their patients and treat not just the symptoms of their illnesses, but their root causes.

In a fireside chat with Laurene Powell Jobs, artist Mark Bradford talked about Art+Practice, an organization he co-founded in Los Angeles that programs free art exhibitions and offers services and initiatives to support foster youth. The organization’s exhibition space is in Leimert Park, a predominantly Black and largely low-income community where Bradford has roots. The decision to open the space was important: it allows people to see the arts in their own community, instead of having to travel to faraway museums that can often feel like they were built for someone else. “We don’t always have to change what we do,” Bradford said. “But we can change where we do it.”

Or, put another way: “Access to a diverse landscape is key to innovation,” explained photographer Dario Calmese. This year Calmese launched The Institute of Black Imagination to preserve, integrate, and cultivate the Black imagination through innovative and interactive experiences. One of his goals is to expand our conception of design, which he argues is bigger than buildings, products, or user interfaces—it’s actually “the technology to bring thought into space and time.” Another of his goals is to draw attention to who actually gets to design our world; to understand whose thought is manifested. He argued that designers who have historically been kept out of worldbuilding have some of the solutions we most desperately need.

This was also a focus for Shirley Collado and Nikki Wallace, educators who are working to make sure lack of access to educational opportunity doesn’t keep anyone from putting their stamp on how the world works. The U.S. education system has helped the country flourish for centuries, but it wasn’t built for everyone and it fails far too many students, Collado argued. She leads College Track, an organization that supports first-generation college students who have limited resources for ten full years—from the beginning of high school through the start of their careers—to ensure opportunity is just as equally distributed to students as talent. Wallace teaches high school science at Memphis’ Crosstown High, an XQ school. After facing loneliness, low expectations, and outright racism while building her first career as a life scientist—a field that is only 2.5% Black—she opted to improve the pipeline by becoming a teacher. Her students will never question whether they belong in a lab. Good thing: “We’re going to need all the diverse brain power we can possibly harness to tackle the huge challenges in front of us,” Wallace said.

But all that diverse brainpower also needs the resources to thrive. The U.S. is home to a huge philanthropic community, but unfortunately, philanthropic dollars often come with requirements to support specific projects or priorities. Solomé Lemma’s organization, Thousand Currents, funds organizations from frontline communities working for food, economic, and climate justice, ensuring those most impacted by these great challenges have funding—without strings attached—that can be put to the uses they know are most needed. What have they done? Train thousands of environmental health monitors in Durban, South Africa. Turn parts of Nepal into green-energy zones. Added Indigenous and gender lenses to the Peruvian government’s climate policies. The frontline leaders Thousand Currents supports have pursued the dreams of their communities. Lemma says the question funders should ask themselves is, “Whose dreams are you supporting: yours or theirs?”

What could be more mundane and unremarkable than a box of crackers? Or one of the scores of shirts most of us have in our closets? And yet, both have surprisingly big bearing on the fight against climate change: More than one third of global emissions come from the food system and agricultural land use, and the U.S. produces 70 pounds of textile waste per person per year. Entrepreneurs Julia Collins and Stacy Flynn talked about their efforts to challenge these systems—and the giant leaps they had to take along the way.

Collins set out to make a “climate-friendly box of crackers”—a snack that was carbon neutral. But in launching Moonshot Snacks, she discovered there was no efficient and affordable way to track the carbon footprint of the ingredients, packaging, shipping, and more required to make crackers. So she launched a second startup, PlanetFWD, that helps consumer brands measure and manage their carbon emissions.

Flynn had worked in fashion for nearly two decades when on a business trip to China she witnessed first-hand how harmful the industry was to workers and their environment. But to do something about it, she realized she needed to build an alternative life cycle for fashion. Her solution? An entirely new fabric that’s made from waste, yet is stronger than cotton and finer than silk. She worked with a textile engineer to co-found Evrnu, whose NuCycl fabrics made of recyclable fibers are creating a circular economy in the fashion industry.

The challenges of trying something new, especially in an entrenched space, are immense. Collins talked about being “full of doubt,” and Flynn about feeling “like a drop in the ocean” of a problem she helped create. But “part of pushing forward into the unknown is being uncomfortable,” Collins said. And it’s worth it. Because, she added, “today’s first steps turn into tomorrow’s leaps and bounds.”