Stephen Johnston's blog
Could a new silver bond finance cross-cutting local projects that are needed to help communities build and scale age-friendly initiatives? Blue bonds, green bonds… The World Bank has recently financed a ‘Blue Bond‘ that aims to fund improvements in fisheries. It’s an evolution of a green bond, and is described as “an innovative financial instrument […]
Could we change the way we think about, and provide, care in our towns and communities – away from today’s siloes and towards more joined up experiences? And redesign things around people rather than buildings, bureaucratic boundaries or profit centres? That was the question I posed to delegates of the British Columbia Seniors Living annual […]
How can we create a good life for all without destroying our planet in the process? The answer, according to Oxford professor and former McKinsey partner Eric Beinhocker, involves changing our economic system from a focus on growth to a focus on problem solving. Success therefore is measured in the progress we make in solving […]
How would we go about harnessing the collective intelligence of hundreds of cities, thousands of organizations, tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, policy-makers, researchers, and millions of individuals and their families to address a significant global challenge? And how indeed, if the topic was aging? Aging has traditionally not been an area where you would look […]
One of the troubles with healthcare is that it’s hard to measure success. What price would you put on your life, or that of your child? Quality Adjusted Life Years are beset with problems. Hedonic adaptation plays havoc with logical ideas that major illness ruins lives, or perfect health should correlate with happiness. It’s also […]
On my panel today at SXSW, Cities Harnessing the Longevity Dividend, I’m going to appeal to cities to work with startups to address the challenges of their older populations, and intergenerational societies more broadly. This isn’t a big leap – over 600 cities and communities are already developing novel strategies for aging, as part of […]
How do we go about effectively tackling major complex global challenges such as climate change, rising inequality, obesity and dementia? One thing is for sure, it won’t be with the same mindsets, systems and tools that got us here. The need for missions – to save the world A fascinating event last week by Collaborate […]
As we approach the 100th anniversary of Armistice day, the story of Flora Sandes, my great great aunt, deserves a retelling. Aunt Flora (her sister was my father’s grandmother), made a unique contribution to the First World War as a nurse, a warrior and a states(wo)man. Born in Yorkshire in 1876, the youngest of eight, […]
There is an increasing awareness of the need for innovation to address the needs of our ageing population, and now is the time for action. The transformational demographics we are living in – Britons today can expect at least an extra thirty years of healthy life compared to their great grandparents – requires a fundamental […]
Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of start-ups focused on ‘healthy ageing’. Since 2012, when I co-founded Aging2.0[i], we have hosted over 500 start-up pitch events across 65 chapters[ii] in 20 countries and are now tracking over 3000 companies globally. Most tend to focus on their breakthrough […]