The Grand Challengers Podcast

Nadja Kunz, Associate Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada shares her insights on the role of water in mining and the importance of critical minerals for the sustainable energy transition. Most notably, we gain insights into the complexity of the mining industry and its diverse and often forgotten stakeholders. What is required for us to make mining more sustainab...

Christoph Ort, Group Leader and Head of the Urban Water Maangement Department at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology dives into the world of wastewater surveillance or wastewater-based epidemiology, techniques, intricacies, use-cases and the broader societal implications. We trace his journey in leading a "band" of disciplines in supporting society during a crisis moment, namely the COVID pandemic, with valuable inf...

Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series wi...

Wei Shan Chen, also known as "Momo", Assistant Professor at Wageningen University shares his journey from Materials Engineering into the environment, from Taiwan to The Netherlands and from the Carbon Cycle to the Water Cycle. We discuss the issue of food waste and its broader implications among other approaches he has taken to recover carbon and close the loop. We also hear about Momo's foray into Blue-Green Infrast...

Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series wi...

Mark Swinnerton, CEO of Green Gravity, shares his journey from metallurgy to mining operations and currently gravitational storage technology to support the energy transition. We get an in-depth look into how he is transforming the renewable energy storage industry and giving old mine shafts a new lease on life, an insight into the technology and logistics and how businesses are evolving in this new digital age. Tune in for some am...

Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series wi...

Lena Mutzner, Group Leader in the Urban Water Management Department at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology discusses the intricacies of stormwater quality monitoring. We learn a bit about how water quality is sampled, different pollutant types that she has focussed on and the ongoing challenge around contaminants of emerging concern. We also discuss the apparent paradox of repeating research cycles despi...

Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series wi...

Jarrod Luxton, Senior Lead at the Finnish Innovation Fund (Sitra), Board Member of Finland's Sustainable Investment Forum (finsif) and Founder of First Arrow discusses what a best-practice sustainability strategy looks like in 2025! The key player? Nature! We delve into the topic of valuing nature-based solutions and compare and contrast between Australian and Nordic contexts, especially Finland's priorities and motivatio...

Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series wi...

Thomas Young, Associate and Blue-Green Infrastructure Specialist at The Environment Partnership (TEP) in the UK shows us his journey from the technical side of green roofs to the more holistic broader planning of sustainability and blue-green infrastructure. His incredible journey is supported by many seemingly unrelated topics, travels and passions that have all contributed to the impact he is creating in the UK. Find out how beer...

Mashael Yazdanie, Group Leader, Scientist and Lecturer at the Urban Energy Systems Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Materials Science & Technology (Empa) traces her journey across the renewable energies towards more holistic thinking around energy, sustainability, society and sufficiency. We cover her projects in both the global north and south, key concepts such as planetary boundaries, sufficiency, efficiency and doughnu...

Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series wi...

Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series wi...

Don Weatherbee, CEO of Regenx Tech Corp in Alberta, Canada shows us how you can scale up metals recycling (or regeneration as he calls it) sustainably. We discuss his journey from studying accounting to joining the mining and resources industry and how he is now leveraging opportunities to close the loop and create the circular economy around critical metals worldwide, in particular, the opportunity of aligning chemistry, process a...

Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series wi...

João P. Leitão, Senior Researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology (Eawag), Professor at ETH Zurich and the first guest of this podcast returns for a Part 2 to reflect on the podcast 40 episodes later, more fun topics about Portugal and major research topics that we did not cover on the first episode including urban drainage asset management, urban heat mitigation and the central role that water pl...

Lucas Gobatti, PhD research at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) goes deep into how Albert Einstein, Benedictus de Spinoza and Karl Marx have shaped his worldview and connection to cities and nature. As a trained architect, civil engineer and urban planner, we discuss how he balances science and spirituality in his research on urban heat and stormwater management and how we can imp...