š„ How Can Entrepreneurial Educators Work Across Societies To Help Solve the Many Problems We Face?
Weāre not fulfilling out fullest potential to solve problems and address issues weāre facing or likely to face in the future because of the fixed learning system we adhere to in tertiary knowledge systems.
For instance journalism, 300 years old, is found wanting today against spin when AI could swiftly rectify this. Public officials can become Kleptocracts with impunity because of policy inertia. Climate change solutions should be at the heart of economics and wealth generation, with a focus on diversity and the global south.
Purposeful storytelling is largely how we communicate effectively with one another. Applied storytelling seeks out how storytellers should see themselves as āengineersā capable of creating physical artefacts too as solutions.
Iām David and Iāve developed a stacked system on Applied Storytelling and Tech that is inter-disciplinary embracing systems and design thinking.
Iām an Applied Chemist turned educator, creative technologists cum storyteller. I believe thereās a new type of educational system that, by offering inter-disciplinary platforms to graduates, could contribute to real world solutions and problem solving. Itās a tighter integration with industry which folds Art, Tech, Culture, Science, Diversity, Creativity and Storytelling together.
The stacked system on Applied Storytelling and Tech would operate outside the confines of lecture theatres, and drop into real world scenarios. It would radically overhaul the present system, and it would require more inter disciplinary tech and creative hubs. Its collaborative ethos would lead to solutions and a healthier productive future.
Stacked: Applied Storytelling and Tech, works because for the past twenty years Iāve tested it.
The TEST
In 2004 I designed a programme that had students super forecast the future and present to several BBC Commissioners and directors. We previewed the world of mobile phones and social media.
In 2004 I created, by coding and designing, a new video platform ā one of the first of its kind ā that would win international awards and bring together writers and producers across the world. Judges said āIt foreshadows the futureā.
It featured award winning photographs which when touched would stream news films that looked like cinema. Diversity was central.
And it was profiled by Apple who invited me share my knowledge at their flag ship store on three separate occasions.
For several years (from 2006- 2015) I ran one of very few programmes in the UK teaching Masters students to build platforms and create original content e.g. podcasts
. I know this because I was one of the university accreditors for the Broadcast Journalism Training Council.
They would pitch their ideas to the BBCās Director of Digital Development.
They also pitched to Google execs in their HQ. It was called āprofessional and inspirationalā .
In 2016, I led a small team of academics developing a digital Storylab. I amplified its knowledge transfer by collaborating with leading entrepreneurs in the UK, the Guild, now Company of Entrepreneurs to mentor them.
Students presented their work in a professional studio. Nasma from Syria created a mobile game to help users understand the journey of a refugee. Today sheās about to launch it with various charities.
In 2019 I launched a Story Lab at Cardiff University called Emerging Journalism. The range of innovations and ideas produced has been staggering and frankly should all receive seed funds to further their ideas.
Mayo in her 20s from South Africa has launched a Fintech platform to help people with limited resources to save for their future. Sheās since won many awards and acclaim.
By working with mentors they learn about empathy and how to read their mentors and pass on assistance. One student captured my colleague and I as a parting gift with the drawing below.
In lockdown I came up with an idea and co-founded a journal between Cardiff University and Birmingham City universityās Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity that reports on diversity in the media. That moment is captured in Lenny Henry and Marcus Ryderās erudite manifesto on diversity, Access All Areas.
The journal has attracted established writers e.g. Gary Younge, and new writers such as Emma Butt. In the inaugural issue I wrote about the importance of archive from discovered tapes documenting Black Lives in the 1990.
CONTEXT
Ido these things, and crave doing them because of how I grew up and my journey that forced me to become inter-disciplinary as a way of finding work.
I partly grew up in foster care, before being taken to Ghana to live with my siblings. I think itās fair to say I know what hardship is like. Ghana then was one coup after another up to the 80s (listen here).
The boarding schools I attended instilled a sense of loyalty, independent and social interaction skills and and how to delimit learning to navigate new spaces.
My college alumni was recently crowned World Robotics Champion, beating the US, UK and Chinese students. What a feat! Hereās the President of Ghana giving Prempeh College a name check.
Today, from those many years back in Ghana, weāre lifelong friends helping one another in times of need.
Back in the UK in the 80s I followed a science pathway. I ditched it after graduating to become a journalist and relocated for 18 months to Apartheid South Africa. My father refused to speak to me for fifteen years.
My first taste of being involved in a start up was in 1994 when thirty youngsters were chosen out of 3000 to become the UKās first video journalists. We would shoot, edit, report, produce and present our own stories ā 500 in a year. Some of my colleagues are now BAFTA winners.
I remember after Channel One, being interviewed by the BBCās head of foreign affairs. He was impressed by my CV; Iād reported from South Africa and had reported on an interviewed Nelson Mandela, but he admitted he didnāt know what I did. I never got the call back.
In Dotcom I, I worked with some of the most inspiring people like Jon Staton former head of TV at Saatchi and Saatchi. See those moving images on the London Underground. We helped develop the concepts. I was Lennox Lewisās filmmaker fighting Tyson, and editor of charity site Justgiving.com. These set me up for entering academia.
Iām able to see the full beneficial effect of collapsing disciplines from working for BBC Newsnight/ Channel 4 News, being one of Googleās EU news Ā£6m innovation fund reviewers and being a launch editor for Justgiving.com, being an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre and creating a new news form that marries together cinema, journalism and soon AI
As a leading UK video journalist with more than two decades work, supported by a PhD, I created a new journalism story form, Cinema Journalism. It builds on one of the greatest pioneer filmmakers in the 1960s who helped me.
But this idea of Stacked: Applied Storytelling and Tech, is way more ambitious. Not unlike the London Inter-disciplinary School run by Carl Gombrich, a friend, Iāve come to know and admire, this would be a global programme connecting with various institutions geared towards Masters level exchanges.
It would have premises but be mobile about industry. It would work in a hybrid form and be agile. It would be involved in documenting itself whilst it worked with collaborators.
Stacked: Applied Storytelling and Tech, is as much a philosophy I learned, and an entrepreneurial educational platform. Itās as much about creating as storytelling. Itās something that should knit the West with the South, UK with Ghana, Europe and the US with Africa.
None of the prelim work would have been possible were it not for the good faith of students, co-workers and managers. This isnāt about me, one person, but the collective. In Ghana, its language itself eschews āIā for āweā as I explained in this post.
Thereās a project in the works which will add more to the idea, but in the meantime if you can help or would like to start a conversation you can reach me at david@viewmagazine.tv or Gyimahd@cardiff.ac.uk or on Linkedin or Twitter.
