The People Rewriting the Rules: Five Unexpected Stories from New York

About this episode

What happens when the systems we've relied on stop working? And who gets to decide what comes next? A year after the dismantling of USAID sent shockwaves through the international aid sector, the world's leaders, philanthropists and changemakers gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly and Climate Week. The funding crisis was far from over, and the big questions about what comes next remained unanswered. Amy spent a week in New York talking to people who weren't waiting for the old systems to be fixed. From former aid workers building a lifeboat for abandoned programmes to a dating app helping tackle HIV, she discovered some unexpected ways of doing things differently. In this episode, Amy and Gus unpack five conversations from New York and ask whether the messy middle might be exactly where new possibilities begin. In this episode: • The Lifeboat Crew: How Rob Rosenbaum and a group of former USAID workers helped redirect more than $170 million towards programmes at risk of closure. • Grindr's unexpected mission: CEO George Arison on using a global dating app to help millions of people access HIV prevention. • A billion people in ten years: Felix Brooks-Church on