Journal

Science Museum’s new exhibition 

The hottest place on Earth Warning sign Detail of one of the many whiteboards and pinboards in the exhibition Cross section of an important part, but don’t ask me which A moment in time The Collider remined me of a stained glass rose windown in a cathedral Cartoon Wanted: Schrödinger’s Cat, dead and alive Higgs boson’s place in the puzzle The champagne bottle that popped when the news came in Shadows on the way back to the Tube

Elaine and I made our way across to the Science Museum this morning for a relatively early start — and a private tour of the Large Hadron Collider exhibition. Stunningly interesting and, in places, beautiful. One of the most fascinating exhibitions I have ever visited and a wonderful introduction to some of the very human sides of this great exploration into the very essence of the universe, alongside the mind-boggling science.

We had missed the discussion between novelist Ian McEwan and physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed, and the sessions with Peter Higgs and Stephen Hawking, but I emerged from the museum feeling that the world was illuminated in new ways — a sensation aided and abetted by the angle at which the late autumn sun was intersecting our mid-November reality.

But relishing the Fall

En route to Richmond Park In the Park, sweet chestnut litter Back in Barnes

I always say I don’t get jet-lag, but after all the jetting back and forth of recent weeks, to South America and back, and then to North America and back, I confess I have felt a little displaced since getting in to Heathrow yesterday. Still, a walk in Richmond Park this afternoon worked wonders, with wonderful fall colours, croaking deer and brilliant sunshine.

The citizen’s eye view of Breakthrough cities

Evergreen Brick Works garden, with part of leaning chimney on right Evergreen, smiles Peter (Love), John (Brodhead), Geoff (Cape) Chairs In session, Aaron on right Discussion One wall, of four walls that were seeing similar activity Roofscape Reception (detail) Bridge Graffito

Our final Toronto session was out at the Evergreen Brick Works, an extraordinary reclamation project that is greening the quarry and brickworks that produced most of the bricks used to build the city. Astronishing project. Find out more about the story here. This really is an extraordinary social enterprise: can’t wait to go back and take a proper prowl around. Wonderful to see a little of Char’s father Peter, too.

This last event in our Toronto series focused on cities and was orgnaised by Evergreen CityWorks, led by John Brodhead. They had convened a group of perhaps 20 Toronto citizens to explore issues related to the city, and to Breakthrough urban innovation. Having originally trained as a city planner at UCL, I felt I was coming full circle.

A fascinating session, and I was sad to have to leave part-way through to take a cab into the city for an interview with CBC. Luckily Char made it across — her youngest son Peter has been ill (and this would prevent her and her sons flying back for over week, as events would turn out) — for the afternoon part of the session. We were both inspired to think how we might use similar processes in our wider Breakthrough work, hopefully working alongside our Canadian friends and partners.

But thrilled to have the opportunity to have a wonderful lunch, with a delicious craft beer (it was Friday) with Evergreen co-founder and Executive Director Geoff Cape. Afterwards, he and I took a rapid walk around some of the site, allowing me to snap some of the facilities and the space still to be developed.

Loved the graffiti, including one of what may have been a wolf, which was appropriate since a mental image that came to mind at one point during the citizens’ panel session, at a moment when there was something of a existential outpouring on the proliferation of choices in our consumer societies, had been that of a howling grey wolf.

Tim Smit of the Eden Project, a member of the Volans Advisory Board, kept coming to mind as I talked to Geoff, so I put them in touch as soon as I got back to London.

Artwork in CBC building CBC

Taking our message to MaRS

The field of play for our main event at MaRS, Alan Gelberg of MaRS on right Bob Willard, top left, during one of the working group sessions Charmian Love of Volans as we wind down Someone’s left a paperclip Joeri (van den Steenhoven, top) and Aaron (Williamson, Value Web) finish up on the visuals

We’ll be posting more on the Volans website imminently, and including a report in our latest newsletter, but in headlines our first Breakthrough Canada events went wonderfully well. we started off with a CEO breakfast, introduced by Ilse Treurnicht, CEO of the MaRS Discovery District. And what an amazing place MaRS proved to be.  But then our team member Char(mian) Love knew that already, having worked there as an intern some six years ago, before coming to Volans.

Later in the day, we swung into our first major Breakthrough Canada event, also held at MaRS. I will include a link here to the report-back when it’s available, but meanwhile huge thanks to Aaron Williamson (of our longstanding Breakthrough partners, The Value Web), and to all the others who helped the session take flight–including Ilse, who kicked it off. Among our other key partners in the event were the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, RBC (Royal Bank of Canada), KPMG, Summerhill and two other key parts of MaRS–Social Innovation Generation (SiG) and the MaRS Solutions Lab.

Great to see a fair few people I knew at the sessions, including Nick Parker of the Cleantech Group, who Char and I had dinner with the previous evening, together with some of Nick’s friends. After the MaRS events, a group of us also went off to another wonderful dinner, hosted by Tim Draimin, Executive Director of of SiG. A different world from Colombia, a week or two back, but the sense of being at home–and of warm hospitality–has been very much the same.