In the lead up to UNFCCC COP30 and the second World Summit on Social Development this year, and delivered directly after UNDRR’s Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GP2025), the Currents of Change symposium and retreat creates a unique space for leaders and practitioners to advance systemic approaches to global risks.

Our aims are to:

1. Advance understanding of systemic risk and cascading effects, bridging gaps between theory and practice

2. Showcase innovative frameworks and methodologies for assessing and managing complex risk, providing hands-on experience with emerging tools

3. Identify actionable pathways for transformative action across scales, exploring real-world examples from diverse contexts

4. Foster cross-sector collaboration and knowledge exchange, bridging sector and discipline siloes and nurturing lasting relationships.

Ben Okri

Ben is the Nigerian-born poet, cultural activist, and author of thirteen novels, including the Booker Prize-winning The Famished Road, the first in a trilogy, and Astonishing the Gods, which was selected as one of the BBC’s ‘100 novels that shaped our world’, as well as collections of poetry, short stories, plays and essays. His work has been translated into more than 27 languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has won numerous international prizes. His poem following the Grenfell Tower tragedy was widely viewed on television and on social media. He was a Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was awarded an OBE in 2001 and a Knighthood in 2023.

Bryan Bixcul (Maya-Tz’utujil)

Bryan is Global Coordinator for the SIRGE Coalition. Comes to SIRGE after three years at Cultural Survival, where he served as Executive Assistant, Executive Coordinator and Advocacy Coordinator. He has supported advocacy efforts within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Bryan also serves on the Indigenous Advisory Group for the Banks and Biodiversity Initiative. This group guides the steering committee on issues intersecting biodiversity and Indigenous rights, aiming to hold financial institutions accountable for activities that impact critical ecosystems and Indigenous territories.

Catalina Jaime

Catalina is the Head of Climate and Conflict at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, a founder member of the Anticipation Hub, and a trustee at MapAction. She has more than 20 years of experience in humanitarian action, focusing on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in humanitarian settings. She is a contributing author to the IPCC’s sixth assessment report. She is currently doing a PhD at the University of Twente on aspects of early warning and early action in situations of conflict and is a guest lecturer at a number of universities.

Ruth Richardson

Ruth is the Executive Director of the Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment (ASRA). She previously led the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and was the first Director of the Unilever Canada Foundation. Richardson was also founding chair of the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers’ Network and the first Environment Director at the Metcalf Foundation. She has served on advisory committees for the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), and the Steering Committee of TEEBAgriFood by UN Environment.

Thomas “Tad” Homer-Dixon

Tad is founder and Executive Director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia. His research focuses on threats to global security in the 21st century, including economic instability, climate change, and energy scarcity. He also studies how people, organizations, and societies can better resolve their conflicts and innovate in response to complex problems. He holds a PhD from MIT in international relations, defense and arms control policy, and conflict theory. He is considered among the world’s leading experts on the intricate links between nature, technology, and society.

William Hynes

William is a Senior Climate Change Economist and co-Director of the Coalition for Capacity on Climate Action (C3A) at the World Bank. He works on integrating climate issues into the Bank’s macroeconomic analysis and dialogue in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. He is an Honorary Professor of UCL and an External Applied Complexity Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. Prior to this, as a Senior Advisor to the Secretary General and Head of New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC) at OECD, he developed research programs on systems thinking, anticipation and resilience, new analytical tools and techniques and new economic and growth narratives. His publications and research are broad and interdisciplinary with a recent focus on green growth, systemic resilience and neuroscience-inspired policy. He holds a DPhil from Oxford University, was a Marie Curie Fellow at the London School of Economics and is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin.