 Good afternoon! How are we doing? And I've had one bit of advice and that's from Mark so far, and that's don't be boring. So I'm gonna really try not to be boring. Who's lost their bag on a plane before? Last week, well, good. I thought so. I mean a lot of us fly an awful lot. I lost my bag actually recently in Switzerland and I flew in somewhere and I was getting the plane and then getting the train back the same day. I asked the lady at the counter Can you not forward on my bag, please? Please don't forward on my bag because I'm coming back here I'm gonna pass back through here, and then I'm going straight back to New Zealand and by the time you've forwarded it on It's found my hotel and it would have found I've already moved on and gone back to the place and you'll forever have been It'll be lost for a week or so. And this lovely lady at the counter said to me, sorry Mr. Johnson, we must forward on your bag. That's our process. I said to her, well Is there any way we can bend this rule or bend this process? There must be something we can do. You're physically dealing with the bag It's a different airline. We're in a different airport. It's a funny situation. Is there anything we can do? She said no, no, we'll get my manager and have a chat. So we have a chat with the manager and eventually no, we can't do anything with the bag and Eventually we got quite terse and she said she said, Mr. Johnson, I lose 2,000 bags a day I think I know what I'm doing And I said well surely this is a process that we should do something about And anyway the bag was lost and it eventually arrived back in Christchurch two two weeks or so later after I was back That my talk today and what I'm really wanting to cover is a wee bit of a glimpse and a snapshot of this amazing place And this amazing place that that myself and so many of my friends and colleagues and family live in the South Island of New Zealand And after talking with a few of you this morning, I know a number of you have been down there But it's a place that I guess over the last wee while has dramatically changed from one thing to another It's changed because we've had huge earthquakes in the past four years Just yesterday was the fourth anniversary the fourth one-year anniversary of our major earthquake that absolutely decimated the city And I would just like to take a moment actually just to reflect back and pause to think of our city one year on 182 people passed away a thousand Buildings gone from the central city and the entire world shattered 175 years of building shattered in 40 seconds by this by this earthquake a lot of us here know New Zealand We're all getting to get in to know this beautiful place that we're in and Looking at how we build a better future. I Think many of us take it for granted not in this room I'm sure but around the world how easily everything can be taken away from you and that sort of time These are shots that I've seen a thousand times You'd always remember if you look at the physical change that happened in the very center of that city So I just flicked back between them you see the physical change and you can only imagine the emotional change that happened within that time I was a student actually back a few years ago and luckily my house and We might where I was flattened there were 12 of us living in a very small section all sort of below consent I imagine it really would have been a great place to have fallen down from the earthquake But it lives on with probably 15 students living in it now going to the local university We were there and and really we got confronted by the silt that arrived post earthquake I got invited to four earthquake after parties on Facebook. I thought that's maybe just not quite the thing We should be doing This earthquake Is it also a guy selling a t-shirt saying I survived the Christchurch earthquake for 35 dollars? And so I created a Facebook page and I'm not going to dwell on it too much today But it's the background and the backdrop of this incredible platform that myself and my colleagues and team members Over the past four years have managed to create and co-create a movement of young people Responding to whatever they see in the community responding to needs that are out there and responding to what we come across We found the silt the silt that arrived It really just we had no idea that Christchurch was having such a huge earthquake And and basically our Facebook page I invited 200 friends to it a mix of the really popular kids at uni who You know, we're good-looking ones or the lots of friends And invited them invited the people I knew his parents had a bit of money so they could pay for the thing and And group of people I just knew would turn up with a shovel and help out and That turned into about 27,000 people on Facebook and 11,000 volunteers who came out to the streets of Christchurch And so within a two-week period there's myself and a core team of 15 of us a couple of different organizations joined us To help manage this huge mass of people that wanted to contribute and and wanted desperately to help But felt they didn't have permission to help And so today actually what I want to focus on most and what I've sort of spent the last four years And what I want to spend the next 10 years on is how do we change? The way New Zealand culture and cultures around the world look at permission in the sense of confidence Sorry, sorry confidence and sense of permission confidence to be who you are and Permission to do what it whatever it is that you want to do So our group and and and to summarize what happened you'd turn up in the morning You would give them a shovel would give them a dust mass would give them the lunch They'd get go walk outside They get given a team leader and walk onto a bus that go out to the suburbs of Christchurch The top of the basket given an old person very important and then get get on down into the street and and go and just shovel the silt All of these students three-quarters of our university went out to help out and as we went out onto the streets We thought we were the ones who were quite incredible because we were out there helping but actually they helped us more than we helped them We wanted to contribute and we needed to contribute to this time for me though and The last couple of years particularly is looked at disasters around the world. I spent some time up in Japan after the tsunami there and Was spent some time with an amazing guy to shoot a Wakana. I've told his story thousands of times He was standing at his door when the earthquake hit. He said to his elderly mum. We need to get upstairs. We need to get away His mum had to mention didn't know what was going on didn't realize the risks that his village face to disasters all the fact that actually 70% of the world's population live in areas prone to natural disasters and half the disasters that could occur in the world haven't happened yet She said no, we don't need to get away. It's okay We'll just wait under the door from another earthquake unaware that tsunami was about to attack them He couldn't get the door open couldn't get the window open Eventually did get the window open is pulling his auntie through the window because the door wouldn't wouldn't open because the frame was all skewed with And he looked out and just saw this wall of water flying towards him Flew towards them and he ran up his stairs and stood at the back of his house for four or five hours While the wall of water just completely decimated, you know his entire existence after that time he came back down and Chest height water and I remember it so vividly him explaining that to us this black water and there's sort of just cars sprinkled around everywhere and There's a car and a swimming pool right by where we were staying and put your hand in the swimming pool and the water is so black We really didn't know what to what to do But he had this amazing sense of of of this amazing resilience, but sense of destiny That whatever it is we go through we have to then reflect back on that and just deal with it as wherever we can And so despite the disaster he had this ability to look back on and lead his entire community in a shunomaki in Japan Through a recovery for a couple of years in an area where no government help no aid help was going to So they guess the thing for me and likes of him and if I reflect back there to the farmers who came and helped out in Christchurch The Farmy army as we as they became known the farmers and all these people who came into town to help out the city folk I remember saying to an old guy once at the end of a end of a day Will you come back tomorrow? And he said yeah young man if you put those 10 young ladies with me. I'll come back every day for the rest of my life And so I was a wee bit of it but what's the motivation for people coming to help out here? But the basic fact was everyone wanted to contribute Amazing that a Facebook page was as simple as it was to mobilize a whole lot of people around it And around this cause so over the last four years We've looked back on actually well What was the success of it's been a lot of studies done a lot of people thought how did these students self-organize and Many people in this room, you know, it's nothing really revolutionary call to action people responded You go out and do it and you kind of make up along the way with our Experiences has taught us though that it's the identity capital that drives these movements And whether it's little movements in New Zealand or ones overseas It's the identity of some of the core people involved that really drives it that galvanizes people around it So the six people who joined me our collective identities and they're the wider 15 the wider 70 the wider 11,000 We're able to drive this movement and completely shattered the stereotype of young people in New Zealand And if we think back four years ago the young perception of students in New Zealand was couch burning drunken Louds basically and we still have good parties. Don't worry And they're great and we still burn couches and Dunedin. It's fun But the point is we can completely change the way an entire Nation looked at an issue What's more interesting than that though for me and in particularly following Peter's Talk this morning is the way institutions in New Zealand respond to social movements We've already seen that today with the way the institutions such as NZ trading enterprise have responded to this gathering happening here today The University of Canterbury has completely changed its student profile and what it hopes every graduate walks out with because of the student army They've created new courses though. They're reforming the law school around service and voluntary contribution Because it's such an important part of Christchurch But the challenge with it and I think as we look at these some of these institutions on the page here how do we Mobilize catalyze more people to have the sense of confidence and permission to respond to what they come across How do we then encourage them to lead? So that the institutions can follow I think of some of the debate this morning It's happening But what can we do more about it? What what more can happen to get institutions to follow the people? It's the trend that's happening and it's some and it's a look to this this photo here Which I love and excuse the quality of it, but it's as you know soon the Hydron Collider in Switzerland And the fact that that was cut that idea was born by some scientists to stop the brain drain to America and then they put billions of dollars towards it each year and I hope it might work, but no idea if it will or not New Zealand for me is a place that It's a place where ideas can really flourish you can come up with an idea and build a team around you very very quickly and test something out Something Peter also mentioned this morning that our team are working on at the moment is the around small states I Think it's a theme to be explored a lot deeper around our ability as a very small nation in the world to align with other small states To drive some really interesting change if you're an entrepreneur in Auckland Why not test your test your idea in in Tel Aviv and Helsinki and then go go wide instead of looking straight to America or China? I think in New Zealand at the moment we have this incredible Love or hate them government very very powerful government But they're gonna and they can with encouragement bring the left green elements right in there and drive that over the next three or four years Well, they'll probably still be in power And it's big movements in New Zealand that will do that for me And so I think there's um There's there's something we created in Christchurch after the earthquakes and it was called the Ministry of Awesome and the response to Ministries may be not being so awesome all the time The Ministry of Awesome is about being a starting point the starting point for whatever it is that you want to do But people who would never dream or know that this sort of forum ever exists a Lady from Shirley last week who who is has a beautiful lampshade business I was selling them for $25 on our equivalent of eBay a couple of connections made in a city growing And she suddenly got a whole income for her family The Ministry of Awesome has this thing about watering the seeds of awesome in communities in New Zealand Our dream in the next 10 years is to have a million people through the Ministry of Awesome to talk to them about the way That they can be awesome and create their own awesome from within them But one of the things that underpins it and one of the things that I think underpins New Zealand culture at the moment that we should focus on is that New Zealand doesn't have a written constitution and Only last year and the year before the government led a review of that constitution There's a lot more we can do there There's a lot more ideas that need to be espoused in New Zealand and a lot more people mobilised to make a real impact So with our little crew in Christchurch For us, it's a lot about courage courage to do things quite differently and Really uniting these people who have very strong social capital to continue their journey If you ever in Christchurch, I'd love to show you around and show you this great place We've got as we're rebuilding a city and a rebuilding a city that right now is in all-force phases of recovery of response to disaster of recovery of reconstruction 900 people last year were still found with tarpaulins over their toilets and whatnot, but actually the trouble down there We can't find out who needs help Trouble in New Zealand, I think is a parallel we can't Have it we don't have enough people who are really prepared to stick their head up and put out these new ideas and have these conversations about different ways of operating politically it's sort of an apolitical standpoint I'm really curious as to a group like this and I want to finish with that question. What are the ideas that people like myself? Well, I found myself in a leadership position at the age of 25 now. I'm just turned 26 What are the what are some of the other things we can really drive in this country? And how do we work better with international partners to really do that to leverage? These ways leverage our connections of a small country the fact we don't have a constitution the fact that institutions are following what we do How do we be more ambitious as a Collective to do that. It's a really exciting time For me and for us where I saw going forward Thanks so much Reflections and questions. Yosef's looking directly at me. I Just want to say you have to visit Christchurch You really really have to go visit Christchurch and see the work that Sam and all the people of the city have done to bring the spirit back alive and Keep the momentum to rebuild something but also create something that wasn't existing before There's a whole art renaissance going on there. There's a spirit of creativity that's just been opened up You really have to go see it More questions and reflections Hey, Sam. I'm curious just if you could go into a little bit more depth about What the nature of the response was? You know, you there's sort of you sort of touched on the emotional side of hey There was just this outpouring of energy. Everybody wanted to help You know, you talked about the Facebook page. What what other systems did did you guys figure out that that may be helped in Creating the rebuild and being effective and that that may be other communities could learn from from your experience sure, so The technology we used to respond was was very simple very basic and it wasn't anything that couldn't be recreated straight away If there's another disaster think it's interesting to look at the policies in New Zealand around disaster response and how they how they have Followed and how they've learned and actually in a large sense. There's a lot of them that haven't followed The natural intuition of the of the communities in the way they responded So just by all different communities mobilizing and going out policy makers have found it really hard to translate that energy into something They can try and recreate a game With our group it was as simple as going out and helping Where we're it's fallen down I think is and how do we stay involved in a rebuild when it gets more complex when it is the adults that take over as such and The only way and one of the only ways has been Different protests and movements and soft diplomacy to try and get get your ideas through I Think we've still got this opportunity as we look at disasters across the country. How would we respond again? How would you rebuild again? We all want like a really green healthy positive happy city in Christchurch But how do you unite the different people in different factions to try and get that to happen? So there's a I mean there's a lot more work there to happen, but Yeah Structure that we're in today this dome came from Christchurch City This was actually Sent down to Christchurch immediately after the quake and was one of the first structures set up in the emergency response And then after they've made some progress They no longer needed the dome and so we're just sitting in storage before this event So just to kind of tell you a little story about this space Yeah, it's really changed the whole dynamic in Christchurch They bought these things in they were for starters that they were the triage Just all the bodies were taken into and then they became these wonderful venues with all these concerts with Musicians and and artists and and everything else that really drove the drove the future of our kind of our little city down there That's a cool space. So Matthew. Yeah Thanks, Sam. That was great One thing that strikes me is just I think a lot of us in this room I have a shared belief that the climate crisis upon us is is going to get worse before it gets better And and that there's going to be more of these natural disasters Globally and and you talked about starting points and the importance of starting points and I think you know We share this sentiment that there's a starting point that happens in a disaster for New forms of organization new forms of culture to emerge new forms of community As well as technologies and tools and sustainable building and so forth and so In response to your inquiry of how do we how do we create global alliances and partnerships and where do we go from here? I just think that the work you're doing in terms of mobilizing youth towards rebuilding in response is Is something that can be globally applied as a pattern and can have such a Phenomenal impact and you seem like the perfect steward of that message and storyteller of that message everywhere in the world Cool. Thanks so much. I think it's great in the last year A team's work with you and ISDR on movement of young people and disasters around the world and out of all the different UN climate Negotiations going on the half post recently called the disaster risk reduction one The one that no one knows about but the one that's working Because it really has such tangible on the ground things the challenge though We have faced in New Zealand is how do you encourage encourage those frameworks to really have application at businesses on a really local level at home And also to mean the way we we've coined it to a lot of government people particularly on the center right is Talk about climate change is disaster risk reduction. Don't talk about it. Does climate change don't mention the seawards What we do and what I try to do is talk about Disaster risk reduction and climate change to mid-cannibary farmers the most conservative People like my dad who would really not believe in what a lot of the fluff He would say that that I'm involved in but when we talk about it as a Everyday thing that you need to prepare for as well. It's much more accessible It's more much more complex in the left and right divide that actually is a something that's Inherently built into New Zealand culture at the moment that hopefully we can move beyond the next 10 years I find myself curious about two things and one is um, you know, have you I'm sure you have made attempts to sort of Leverage the goodwill that must have accrued towards all of your efforts with the bureaucracy in place To help get yourself a seat at the table sort of in terms of their future rebuilding efforts And the other was as you've traveled to other disaster places in the world Are there lessons that you've found to bring home that are applicable as you plan and look towards the future? Yeah, sure great question an interesting point So I think just on the second part This there's a lot that we bring home and I think there's a lot more we can bring home We do have this culture in New Zealand where I'll let's let's create world best practice Disasters have happened since since the beginning of time. So bringing those lessons. I think it's something we can still do better at And in terms of our learning outwards, it's a lot about the individual Responding and and a lot of the challenges we face is on getting beyond the barriers of having a certain qualification And that was faced in Christchurch a lot. Do you have the right qualification? Does that get you the seat at the table? And how do we encourage our leaders to recognize that? the legitimacy of power and from new places and That's been a huge struggle in Christchurch And then often it's what happens and then it's It's somewhat token. So we have to be careful around that as well. So, yeah Hey Sam love the energy level the passion One thing that really jumps out to me is the Energy that can be built around movements movements that people find meaningful movements that allow people's values And I think that is something that can bring people in and going from this previous talk with trade enterprise When you like what they're kind of framing was how do you sell the country? How do you sell New Zealand? And I think there's a possibility or chance that it goes sort of one step further And it's not that you're selling like New Zealand as a country like them the more time that I've spent traveling and meeting people The more I come across really intelligent young people who have a much more global Globally-minded view of the world and this is the global citizens and they're not so much looking for a country to align with You know something like I want to move to this country because I align totally with a country because I think we all kind of Realizing that there isn't just like one country that we totally line with all our values But if New Zealand can be the like When you're selling New Zealand, it's not that you're selling is not just a country But it can be like a movement it can be it can be a way of living it can be a way of being and then you can attract in all Of these amazing gifted minds to come somewhere to work on things that they find meaningful And they believe it and then you're incubating a whole lot of talent talent and Producing a whole lot of innovative technologies, but I think is a theme that is being that's the whole kind of point I feel of all these conversations that we're having I very much agree and actually so the idea I mentioned briefly about the movement of entrepreneurs or whatever it is But businesses between small countries and I'm not a startup guy I don't know a lot about that but our theory is if you're if you're a young Kiwi You often go off to England because that's our sort of hangover Let's go to England for two years and have a visa exchange structure There is very open and appreciative and you learn but we come back with the same ideas. I Think long-term what we need is almost like a new Commonwealth of countries Maybe who are small and small and powerful in their own ways and our entrepreneurial ideas is the very seed of that If you have a much better connection between Security and economically similarly similar countries But the geographically Not located together. You can actually do some wonderful things You've got these powerhouses around the world with a lot on common our governments are in common The legal structures are in common, but we don't really talk together that much So we've got a lot more to do in that space I think which is exactly plays on your point in New Zealand I think internationally must be a leader in that and be much more vocal. It's not a fast-follower. It's a leader The young people in communities in New Zealand are saying we want to be leaders and and it is about saying to the two Institutions as well. We want you to be actively leading on climate issues on on fossil fuel issues So I think we can do it here. So that's the exciting part So just finally Mark's been putting up his hand and I know that he had some strict Guidance for you not to be boring and I'm wondering if he's going to comment on that or something else. I'm intrigued I Think Sam I've had the privilege to know this young man since the earthquakes You've yet again managed to avoid being tedious Sam But there's a serious point here Peter this morning was talking about the shadow side of this culture of ours And the question I'm going to throw to you Sam is that I mean I have a blessed life and that I spend half my life out of this country and it's a privilege and God protect us from the zealots be there the madrasas in Pakistan or the Bible Belt and the Marigold River God protect us from the earnest who fail to have a sense of humor, but also Sam God protect us from the beige From those without to end a without passion so my question to you Sam is exactly the one you've just picked up how do we in this culture break through and And Enable mom and pop here to really embrace the kind of leadership that you are calling for and your generation is demanding So that we can start to look at this idea of the incubator nation that Matt and And you also saw so can I throw that easy challenge at you? What are what are the steps to get the adults so-called the business as usual adults out of the bloody way? yeah, I Think you did right around Demanding that and we need to be more vocal about that. There is a lot more Lot more voice that needs to go to the debate particularly from the younger generations politically For me though it really does come back to those two things around confidence and sense of permission How do we restructure the education system so people do have more confidence in their own ideas and How do we get over the hangover that you need particular a particular career progression to be successful? And it's the district and the debates are all out there and I can't argue them all Though the other ones we need to embrace here more more freely And I think it's a really good step about telling stories Peter telling the New Zealand story today Is a star but what's the individual stories we're telling within New Zealand and and why do we compete against each other? And even from Christchurch between Auckland, we have this sort of And I walk on that's a big city But you know we should be as a nation looking out and not just to the states in China But looking out to the whole ASEAN region and then the Pacific and Really acknowledging where we've come from there And I think so education has a huge role to play for me But also just an absolutely nurturing and supporting the people who are driving it already You couldn't you and I could probably name a hundred in the country who are really doing it Rebecca Mills my dear friend who's the one introduced introduced me to this forum and really has mentored myself in a whole lot Over the last years Rebecca spends a huge amount of her time doing that as you do mark and I think that's the key It's actually nurturing and supporting these people and Like myself four years ago. I had no idea that I would never be able to do some of the things we've done in the last four years We need more of that mentoring and support though to actually help them get to the second the second part And Carl as well I want to acknowledge for that the mentoring Thanks, Sam One more question and we'll break for lunch and thank you very much for acknowledging our great relationship which is growing over the years That was very inspiring. Thank you. Love the Ministry of Awesome. I Want to just recommend a book called resilience thinking to everybody actually and it has a whole suite of case histories not it It's a combination of biology or ecology and sociology But one of the points they make is basically what you find Communities that are resilient what it comes down to is social ties social times save lives quite literally So everything that you're doing here is completely on point in terms of engaging community in that way But one other tool that's used that can be profoundly Transformational is scenario planning and most people don't really think about the future at all to begin with or they think of it Incrementally just as an extension of the present not the kind of disruption that we're talking about here both externally imposed or internally generated and So it can be something that you know once you open up Well, what kind of future do we want is it future a bcd? It and it's a fantastic engagement tool So what you're talking about it gets people to for recognize their own assumptions Which is the very first step in moving outside of that and then opens up many possibilities for engagement and creativity and participation So anyway, it's a great social technology Thanks very much for that. Thanks, Kenny Round of applause for Sam Johnson