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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.

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.

And a close encounter with coffee in the Botanical Gardens

Botanical Gardens Palms Irises Getting ready for the event Outside the Gardens Wendy Arenas Wightman being interviewed at Semana Margarita Marino de Botero says she is pre-Internet, but uses iPad

It’s decided: I am falling in love with Colombia. Took a cab this morning to the José Celestino Mutis Botanical Gardens, though taking a cab here can be a matter of some courage. The roads aren’t great and the driving is worse. I have seen two multi-vehicle collisions since arriving. But I arrived in good time and the driver kindly guided me into the Gardens.

I was taken around the Gardens in the early morning sun by Juanita Rico, from Semana magazine, and then María López Casteno came across to meet us. She is the daughter of the owner of the Semana Group and is in charge of sustainability-related activities there, among them Semana Sostenible. Great energy as the participants arrived at the conference centre: I met some wonderful people.

Then, as in anxiety dreams, one of those things happen that you really wish wouldn’t: given a small cup of espresso, I somehow managed to upend it over my tie and shirt. Retreating to the restroom, which had plenty of hot water, paper and dryers, I made the best of things. That said–as I mentioned later in the day–the aroma of good coffee was constantly with me.

The morning session was in effect a Breakthrough Lab, with some 60-70 people, and a ‘fishbowl’ session in the middle. María and Felipe (Arango) led the early part of the event and the discussion was wonderfully engaging. When it ended, a number of us headed off to the Semana offices for a lunch of some 20 people, hosted by María, including Wendy (Arena Wightman) and Felipe (Arango), but with a goodly mix of people I had not yet met.

Among those invited was Margarita Marino de Botero, the Colombian environmentalist who was one of the members of the Brundtland Commission. Very lively conversation around the table, after which some of us talked to Felipe López. He presented me with a signed copy of his autobiography, noting that I seemed to be the man who had persuaded his daughter to “save the world.” Initially, I was not entirely sure that he thought that this was a good thing, but it became clear that he was proud of her and of her mission. María recalled that she had read Cannibals With Forks six years ago and the lights had come on. It’s at moments like these that I struggle to see how the impact of some things we do can be capturing in any normal set of impact metrics.