GRACE BOYLE?your shot of evergreen #inspiration from Global Regenerative Voices who really have something to say

Be inspired by Grace Boyle!

Name: Grace Boyle

Company / Institution: The Feelies

Title: Founder; Director

Website: thefeelies.io?

LinkedIn profile: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/grace-boyle-92ab6b10b/

Country of origin: UK

Country you currently live in: London, UK

Your definition of Regeneration: Feeling rooted enough in your past to not be afraid to move forward to a different future.? And being kind!

Main business challenge you face: Being interested in the avant-garde!?When I started Feelies in 2014, the studio made multisensory virtual reality pieces, and there wasn’t a business framework for that. Over time, I understood that the works were a form of praxis, of developing thinking by doing.?So I have the freedom to create works that I find interesting conceptually, which fuels my thinking for lecturing, writing, and consulting on design futures.

Main driver that keeps you going: I’m extremely lucky to be able to follow the thread of what I find interesting.? Most of the time ;)

The trait you are most proud of in yourself: I have authenticity, for better or for worse! And I really value kindness.

The trait you most value in others: Taking care of other people.

Passions & little things that bring you joy: I love meeting new people, being exposed to new ideas, and discovering new places.

The Inspirators who determined you to take the regenerative path:

In my twenties, I worked as an environmental campaigner and researcher in India.?My manager was a climate campaigner called Vinuta Gopal, and she was very inspiring for me in that she gave me so many amazing opportunities! Having grown up in London, on my first week on the job I was suddenly off on a bus to rural areas in Kerala to interview fishermen and farmers about climate change. Later I would visit the Himalayas to profile communities that had set up their own microhydro unit.? She gave me so much opportunity for growth and I am forever indebted to her for that.?

Most used and abused clichés in sustainability that bother you: I worry about neo-colonialism disguised as NGO work.

An honest piece of advice for young people who lose hope:?The Industrial Revolution was only about 250 years ago.?Extraordinary changes can take place in very short periods of time - and the same can be true for regeneration. When I started working in environmental campaigning just 15 years ago it was absolutely not the mainstream conversation, and now we have people’s movements like Extinction Rebellion. It takes effort, but do keep faith.

Books that had a great impact on you / Must-Reads for any regenerative professional:

• The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants by Karen Bakker.? There are some incredibly exciting developments in the ability of machine learning to start interpreting animal communication in a way that our anthropocentric viewpoints have not been able to. “Google Translate for animals”! :)
• In the Eye of the Wild by Nastassja Martin.?It begins with an account of the French anthropologist Nastassja Martin’s near-fatal run-in with a Kamchatka bear in the mountains of Siberia. Martin’s professional interest is animism; she addresses philosophical questions about the relation of humankind to nature, and in her work, she seeks to partake as fully as she can in the lives of the indigenous peoples she studies. Her violent encounter with the bear, however, brings her face-to-face with something entirely beyond her ken: the untamed, the nonhuman, the animal, the wild.?Severely mutilated, dazed with pain, she must discover what it means to have become, as the Even people call it, medka, a person who is half human, half bear.’

Movies / Documentaries you would watch all over again: Everybody in the Place: an Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992 by Jeremy Deller.? A retrospective on rave culture set as a fascinating conversation between Deller and modern-day teenagers that ends up touching on technology, privacy, cultural media, and joy.

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Music that makes you (and your heart) sing: I’m a sucker for a skittle beat.?Pop songs yelled at karaoke.?And a drop reverberating through your body in a big crowd of everyone dancing.

Places you travelled to that left a mark on you: Staying in the Amazon forest as a guest of the Munduruku people to perform a ‘sensory shoot’ of their lives.?The data we gathered would be used to make a multisensory virtual reality piece to take their story to urban audiences and build support for their fight to establish their ancestral land rights in the jungle.

Events we should attend / Best places for networking (online or offline): I was recently invited to speak at The Symbiocene and was impressed with their use of social media, and how they’re managing to build an international community around climate campaigning.

Reasons to feel optimistic about our future in 2030:?Our levels of computational ability are increasing exponentially.

Reasons to feel pessimistic about our future in 2030: Our levels of computational ability are increasing exponentially.

Regenerative Leadership qualities much needed today: Conversation, tolerance, and debate.? Not everyone is going to agree with you, and that’s ok.? Cancelling someone does not resolve the core issue.

The quote that inspires you:

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” (Maya Angelou)

Your quote that will inspire us:

Meet Grace at UNFINISHED Festival 2024 in Romania, where she will be a Speaker!

From September 27-29 2024, the House Of Ideas, the heritage greenhouse of the University House of UB will host experiences, conversations, art installations, performances, and well-being sessions. The 4000 sqm garden in the heart of Bucharest will transform into a creativity hub for more than 3000 participants. This year’s theme is PRAXIS, focusing on connecting theory with practice, encouraging us to move from passive information receivers to active creators of our own learning experiences, and embracing the present moment with all its surprises.

The event is open to the public and the only way to participate is by filling out an application and following a selection process conducted by the festival organizers. The application can be filled in on apply.unfinished.ro.

Inspirators is one of the Media Partners of the event, so if you’re up for a meeting at the event and discovering ways we can work together, co-create and partner up, message Ioana Marin or Theodora Dumitric?. We are all in for discovering sustainability leaders and helping them bring an inspiring twist to their personal brand and storytelling strategy.

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Inspirators is an impact-driven consultancy spotlighting regenerative leadership stories from all corners of the world and helping sustainability speakers become more visible and inspiring presences.

Through a questionnaire similar to Marcel Proust, but with a modern twist, we offer evergreen inspiration and curated conversations with +120 global voices from +80 countries. Diversity at its best from all walks of life: book authors, renowned speakers, explorers, Indigenous leaders, disability rights advocates, film producers, biologists, artists, activists, and all those who walk the regenerative talk.

Some of the luminaries who answered our questionnaire include?Princess Esmeralda de Belgique, John Elkington, Fawzia Koofi, Riane Eisler, Leen Gorissen,?Wallace J. Nichols,?Steven Laureys,?Neema Namadamu,?Ha Vinh Tho, Wayne Visser, Jojo Mehta, Ilarion Merculieff, Frances Valintine, Nays Baghai, Don Four Arrows Jacobs, Niall McCann, Sam Feldt, Popi Borboroglu, Lola Akinmade,?Daniel Christian Wahl, Jyoti Ma, Leyla Acaroglu, Heela Yoon, Anton Treuer, Christian Busch, Hinemoa Elder,?Peggy Oki,?Liv Arnesen, Richard Louv and many others!

We welcome you into a storytelling ecosystem that invites you to slow down and reflect by offering an essence-focused perspective on what being a regenerative leader truly means. We offer a diversity of ideas for all those who want to be not only thriving leaders but also the flourishing humans this world is craving.

Our consultancy services focus on two impact areas:

• Transformative Storytelling for global community building. We create personalized story series in the form of interviews to help sustainability leaders and companies build and activate their communities creatively and position themselves as trustworthy sources of inspiration and thought leadership.
• Speaker Visibility programs. We advise and equip sustainability speakers with the guidance, connections, resources, and tools to become visible and inspiring thought leadership presences on global stages.

Dare to reach out, we have exciting ideas for you!

Ioana & Theodora

https://www.inspirators.org/

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