About Spark - Stories from Advocates for Global Change
What does it take for the young generation to tackle the world’s biggest challenges? In Spark, hosts Julia, Zora, and Tanish search for answers. As young people navigate an uncertain future, they explore how experts from diverse fields—from science to law and the arts—are driving meaningful change in their careers.
From climate change to human rights, AI, media, and democracy, each episode brings fresh perspectives and engaging stories about the people behind the change. What drives them? What challenges do they face? How can different disciplines collaborate to drive impact? And what role can we all play in shaping a better future?
Whether you’re a student, a young professional, or simply curious about the world ahead, tune in, learn, and get inspired!
Hosts: Julia Knuchel, Tanish Shinde, Zora Althaus
Human Rights 3/3 with Markus Schefer - Ensuring human rights of persons with disabilities
Professor Markus Schefer discusses legal frameworks and advocacy that ensure human rights for persons with disabilities, highlighting barriers and the UN Convention's role in shaping human rights initiatives in this interview.
4 Nov 2025
Human Rights 2/3 with Erika Schläppi - Fighting for women’s rights in a changing world
Erika Schläppi, a human rights expert, discusses her international work on building fair justice systems for women and marginalized groups, emphasizing cultural sensitivity and collaboration in this interview.
22 Oct 2025
Human Rights 1/3 - Stefan Schlegel
Stefan Schlegel discusses human rights in this episode of Spark - Stories from Advocates for Global Change, offering insights into global advocacy; this is an interview.
26 Sept 2025
Social media and democracy 3/3 with Tommaso Venturini - Exploring social media and internet culture
Professor Tommaso Venturini examines social media's impact on the information landscape, discussing algorithms, internet culture, and the need for smarter regulation in this interview.
12 Sept 2025
Social media and democracy 2/3 with Sophie Timmermann: Protecting democracy with fact-checking
Host Sophie Timmermann, head of fact-checking at CORRECTIV, discusses how social media disinformation impacts democracy and reveals fact-checking strategies in this interview.
29 Aug 2025
Social Media and Democracy 1/3 with Anna Jobin: Who decides what's true?
Anna Jobin, senior researcher and lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Human-IST Institute, discusses how social media algorithms shape public opinion and truth in this interview.
6 Jun 2025
Artificial Intelligence 3/3: Exploring AI in research and education with Pamela Delgado and Emmanuel Senft
Pamela Delgado and Emmanuel Senft explore the challenges and benefits of AI in research and education, discussing human-robot interactions and computational resource management in this interview.
23 May 2025
Artificial Intelligence 2/3 with Andrea Emilio Rizzoli - Environmental and Societal Challenges of AI
Andrea Emilio Rizzoli, director at IDSIA, examines AI's evolution and impact, highlighting its potential to solve global issues like climate change while recognizing its environmental footprint; this is an interview.
9 May 2025
Artificial Intelligence 1/3 with Silvia Quarteroni - AI history, applications and human impact
How important was/is the human intervention for its adoption and future
In this episode, Silvia Quarteroni (https://www.datascience.ch/people/silvia-quarteroni), Current Chief Transformation Officer & Head of Innovation at the Swiss Data Science Center (SDSC), talks about the origins and evolution of AI as well as the active part we all have in shaping its future.
She also discusses past, current and future possible applications of AI, with an accent on potential development of personalisation for medicine.
Listen to Silvia talk about the importance of embracing AI and how the professional path of many disciplines can lead to AI, due to the importance of solving problems in a pragmatic way.
For more information, visit the SDSC website (https://www.datascience.ch) or follow Silvia on (https://bsky.app/profile/janethering.bsky.social)LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/quarteroni/).
25 Apr 2025
Climate Crisis 3/3 with Janet Hering - How to move research out of the lab into practice
How collaboration across disciplines and outside academia is needed to address climate change
In this episode, Janet Hering (https://usys.ethz.ch/en/people/profile.janet-hering.html), former Director of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology (Eawag) and Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETHZ) and Lausanne (EPFL), shares her experience on leading a research center and working at the interface between science and policy.
Learn how interdisciplinary research is needed to address climate change and its consequences, and how universities need to change to encourage collaborations between researchers and outside academia to have a practical impact.
Listen to Janet talk about her work at the interface between politics and science, the role of scientific institutions in society, how to include citizens in policy-making, and the power of young generations.
For more information, visit the Eawag website (https://www.eawag.ch), follow Janet on bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/janethering.bsky.social) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/janet-hering-53a6b847/), read her publications (https://www.linkedin.com/in/janet-hering-53a6b847/details/publications/) or read her blog series at: https://www.epistimi.org/blog (https://www.epistimi.org/blog).
11 Apr 2025
Climate Crisis 2/3 with Arnaud Nussbaumer-Laghzaoui - Using the law to defend climate causes
In this episode, Arnaud Nussbaumer-Laghzaoui, president of Avocat.e.s pour le climat (https://avocatclimat.ch/en/) and partner at Jacquemoud Stanislas (https://www.jacquemoudstanislas.ch), shares his experience in defending cases related to the climate crisis in Switzerland.
Dive into his work including defending the protesters who staged tennis matches in Credit Suisse branches, holding FIFA accountable for greenwashing practices during the 2022 world cup in Qatar, and an upcoming case against the Swiss government representing Swiss farmers impacted by climate change.
Learn about the creative legal work required for climate change cases, the growing role of young lawyers and judges, and why he continues to take on these complex cases.
This episode was recorded before the decision from the European Court on the case brought by the Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland against the Swiss government.
More information on Avocat.e.s pour le climat (https://avocatclimat.ch/en/) here, the Credit Suisse Protesters Trials here (https://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/credit-suisse-protesters-trial/) and on the case against FIFA here (https://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/new-weather-institute-v-fifa/).
26 Mar 2025
Climate Crisis 1/3 with Mirko Winkel—Exploring the intersection of art and science
Mirko Winkel, an artist from the Institute of Geography (https://www.geography.unibe.ch/index_eng.html) of the University of Bern, talks to our hosts Julia and Tanish about his work at the mLAB (https://mlab.unibe.ch/). It is a unique space that explores novel roles of art in geography research and community outreach. From using cartographic methods, to applying artistic mapping techniques in scientific studies, the mLAB fosters transdisciplinary collaboration and helps students bring creative ideas to life.
Discover how art made climate change more tangible through an immersive project in Bern focused on “heat islands” – urban areas that trap heat due to human intervention. In a project developed for Bümpliz, participants rode bikes equipped with thermometers to track temperature shifts across the city. They then analyzed the data with mathematical models in a Ansermetplatz square and experienced the cooling effect of noble infrastructure like a public pool and increased tree coverage in this notorious heat island. This project made climate science accessible and intuitive for the public and policy makers alike.
For more information, visit the mLAB website (https://mlab.unibe.ch/), and follow them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/mLAB.unibern/), Instagram (@mlab.unibern (https://www.instagram.com/mlab.unibern/)) and X https://x.com/bernmlab (https://x.com/bernmlab).
Hosts for this Episode: Julia Knuchel and Tanish Shinde
Who has been a guest on Spark - Stories from Advocates for Global Change
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Markus Schefer
Erika Schläppi
Stefan Schlegel
Tommaso Venturini
Anna Jobin
Podcast Authority Score: 8 / 100
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