Supporting friends

I just backed two of my friends in their respective crowd funding endeavours.

Christoph and I lived together during university. A few years ago, he and his friend and fellow ex-SOAS student Guy, embarked on quite a special journey.

They founded Planetary Collective, a multidisciplinary and multimedia initiative set to nurture a sense of interconnectedness amongst us: amid a growing ecological and ideological crisis, a new worldview is necessary.

Part of their inspiration draws from the experience astronauts recount from seeing earth from space.

Their milestones on this journey have been nothing short of impressive. Their short documentary about the Overview Effect has already garnered more than 1m views on Vimeo:

Now they are proceeding with their feature-length piece, set to be released in early 2014. Continuum will present the views of a whole list of thought leaders from the field of science and philosophy. Planetary now need $80k+ to finalise post production as well as shoot additional interviews.

Their fantastic Kickstarter image film has plenty of Tokyo footage – Christoph and Guy stayed with a mutual friend while here in Japan last year, before my arrival:

My friend Brett has a somewhat smaller yet no less ambitious project: exploring the themes of his forthcoming book in more detail and with great interactivity, Brett wants to start a London-based School of Financial Activism.

Brett and I studied at Cambridge together and he has been living the “dream” of a freelance consultant, writer and activist for a good part of the last couple of years.

What I like in Brett’s work is that he has travailed the serious realm of high finance for a few years and thus understands the jargon and, what is more perhaps, has less of a refusenik style than many anti-establishment writers.

I think a major reason I have been relatively at ease with my recent “career step” (i.e. quit my day job and plunge into the unknown of a break as yet undefined in length) has been the experience of friends like Christoph and Brett.

For their inspiration I want to thank them. To their worthy projects I gladly give!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *