Smart Seeds, a GHD Digital design-led innovation program.

0:01 Have you ever wondered how great ideas that solve challenging problems? Make it past the initial conceptual design phase to actually be implemented as a solution that addresses the problem on a full-scale? Well, today we explore the incubator of ideas where emerging leaders are trying to solve complex problems in a program, led by ghd called smart seeds. So listen up. It's going to be a great show. Can't wait. Welcome to the environmental transformation podcast where we talk with industry leaders who are making an impact and their businesses, each leader is solving complex challenges and provide Solutions within their respective areas of expertise. Our host is Sean Grady.

0:48 His passion about helping clients, transform their businesses and solving their environmental challenges and here's our host, Sean Grady. Today's guest is one of my mates from Down. Under Mi Coker miles is a strategic design lead with d-lab. One of ghd's digital Global Innovation practices as a qualified and experienced environmental engineer. Miles has extensive experience establishing and managing design lead initiatives in water environment and Community Development. Including smart seeds, miles is going to shed some light on the smart seeds, design-led Innovation program, and its impact on local communities and businesses during our show today.

1:41 Mi welcome to the environmental transformation podcast. How you doing mate? Very, very well. Thank you, Shawn. Thanks for having me. I like your use of the word, nice. This is really, making me feel right at home. That's right. I'm so excited to have this this interview with you. I gave the listeners a little bit of a bio intro on you earlier. So they've got a little kind of snapshot of what, who you are, what you do. So that's exciting. And we'll let you get into a little more of that here soon. But you know, a couple years ago when I met you when I was in Australia, I was intrigued about this program, the ghd created and that you were involved with called smart seeds and from what I gathered it's a design-led Innovation program with the goal of solving challenging problems. You know that businesses and minute and municipalities are having and so I thought you know that's be a great show to have and maybe you can give us a little more information about the program we can talk about it. Fuel.

2:42 It's not seeds of been really privileged to be part of this monthly program. So look, let's go back to the beginning. It was founded in 2012 by a colleague of mine called, Claire Dixon's, really entrepreneurial thinker a very much a social thinker as well. Clear saw the opportunity to bring diverse stakeholders together, the stakeholders that are needed to solve some of society's most complex challenges and Stakeholders that don't always get to work together from the outset. We typically segment, we segregate our problem solving and so to break down those silos and bring those organizations together, we saw potential value there.

3:27 What we then did was engaged with organizations say around a city, a place, it began in Melbourne. So we engage with the public and private sector there and we ask them. Do you have emerging leaders? Young professionals. Those that are at the beginning of their careers that haven't quite been conditioned, like us the seasoned professionals. I think exactly that may be out of shit. Fresh line, provide a fresh pair of eyes on these challenges, right? So that we might actually make some some tangible progress. A lot of these challenges are really hard to shift. So we designed a program that would Not only engage these emerging leaders in a, in a program that enables them to collaborate but we also built their capacity to think in different ways. Take on different mindsets, really inspired by Design thinking and a lot of the human centered approaches to problem-solving, creative approaches to problem-solving these brooches.

4:37 Haven't always been introduced particularly the technical professionals. So if you've studied engineering like myself, we are very much analytical thinkers based on science and evidence design thinking has elements of that but is also very open to New Perspectives. So and very much rooted in the experience of people and so we introduced the process, the tools enabled. By Design thinking practice and allow them to practice it on the challenges that are very much relevant to them in their in their home surrounds or their working environment.

5:17 So seed over 10 weeks, these we might have 40 participants from across different sectors and organizations working together. Maybe six teams of six six or seven and they'd all be focused on a different Don't Challenge. And then over those Ten Weeks, pick up different skills, work for a process and then be able to pitch back the ideas. So I guess the challenge leaders or the challenge authors that that came up with these. So yeah, it's proven to be very empowering and inspiring I guess they're all of you. Well, that's kind of what I took away from the information. I read on the website about smart seeds and it kind of struck me Interest.

6:06 I was I was interested in. How do you guys engaged? You know, and encourage outside stakeholders in the public and private sector to get involved in these projects? Yes, o GH D. We have really are in a fortunate position to have really trusted relationships across yeah a whole range of different sectors and and organizations. So we are able to pick up the phone and identify people who are, I guess passionate about similar things. Not necessarily their day job but the impact that they would like to, like through their careers, through the influence. So that's a really good starting Place. Being able to pick up the phone and say, hey, we've got an idea. We'd like to bring together people to solve complex problems in ways that we haven't done before. Are you interested?

6:57 And generally we found it was a it was an outlet people, very eager. Yeah. Like they were probably kill me. Know what I've been looking for somebody to ask me this question, right? I mean Have problems who doesn't right? Exactly. I mean, and on the flipside of that, it's different. So some people, some organizations, find it hard to engage in things that that are maybe new ill-defined a little bit ambiguous because it's quite exploratory. So, sometimes it takes a few conversations before people get comfortable and they just have to jump in and say, well, we don't know what it is. We haven't experienced that yet but we trust you. Come along the journey. Yeah. Right. Right.

7:37 Well, I mean so what type of challenges and problems are the emerging leaders trying to solve? You know, like what are these types of challenges these these leaders in the private public sector been bringing to the smart seeds group. Yeah, so I guess if you think of all the complex factors, the environmental factors that we, we need to Grapple with more and more. In the way we do business in the way we design solutions for cities or between cities the way we educate. Kate people so very much societal why we take care of people's Health? We find that these are all cross-sector issues. So the starting point for a lot of these challenges will be triggered by climate change.

8:20 How do we adapt? How do we make more resilient cities? It may be around health and Health crisis. So I mean, I can imagine if we launched a smart seeds in a city today, something will be around. How do we adapt to Panda? Hammock, and how do we design institutions from some places, right? Yeah, yeah, all that. So it's the things that we can't solve alone, that we need to engage with each other, to be able to kind of navigate this. And, and I guess one of the most challenging elements of the program is, there is no well-defined problem here. It's very ambiguous.

9:02 It's and, and is unlikely to be one single solution that will solve. These things, it needs to be a portfolio. It needs to be a collective effort, and even then your efforts to solve the problem. May change the problem. And so, it's this wickedness, that you can't quite ever catch. There's all kinds of these challenges, right? I'm assuming and a lot of inputs discipline, you know, solving them in. I was looking on again, back on that website and I saw some of the YouTube videos that were posted about the, you know, successes of some of the sessions. And you talked about the, you know, the covid-19 pandemic that's going on right now, and I know that ghd's just recently were, was involved with an acquisition of movement strategies or is that it's at the name movement strategies?

9:51 That's right? Yeah. And that's like one of the ideal Perfect Solutions of, you know, solving some of this covid-19, you know, pandemic, social distancing and treat people tracing type thing. And I, and they've been kind of involved in smarts For quite a while. Look like, Yeah, so movement strategies. Yeah. Their business that have been in doing their thing for quite a long time. They've recently joined, ghd, and remarkable timing. I daresay the foresight to bring in a movement strategies business. On the verge of a pandemic has been really interesting for us because we've been out of lean on them heavily in the way that you know, if we're designing hospitals How do we design them to then minimize the movement or the incidence of or chance of virus print? Sure.

10:50 How do we construct or continue to construct major infrastructure projects. When we now need to physically distance, these are all very different considerations to how many of these projects would have been planned originally and they need to change if they're to keep going. Rapidly and so movement strategies. They have the capabilities and the data to support these strategies to change the way we work to to improve the flow of people and reduce risk. Yeah I've seen some other information out there and you know just watching the the flow of people and the interaction in the time periods and being able to map that out I think there's a lot of opportunity and potential. The to really help solve this problem, you know, some of the other types of problems that you know or interesting outcomes that you've seen in the program.

11:49 I like what, you know, what are some of the other interesting challenges that were kind of solved or at least identify this good Solutions that's come out of the smart seeds program. Well, a lot of utilities weather and water or power a lot of Transport authorities. There's a lot of organizations that provide public service and they own a lot of land. And so traditionally a water business would be concerned really with the singular function of either transporting water or cleaning water or I guess I flee conveying water to reduce flood. Yeah, but now we're starting to look at what else. What other benefits can these organizations provide and work across into the public domain.

12:45 So some of the challenges have been particularly around transport, how do we repurpose land that is underutilized, sure. They might be transport corridors for instance, where you've got a rail Corridor in cut. So you've got Essentially space above the rail which may segregate to suburbs, how can you repurpose that land above a rail Corridor to provide additional benefit to community whether that's to connect to community? So enable suburbs to flow, right? We're well like we you know there's some of those examples here like Rails to Trails. So we've got a lot of old rail Spurs from railroad tracks that are a, you know, being used any longer and Run right through minute major, you know, neighborhoods and communities.

13:34 And it's like well let's create a green space and a you know an area of outlet for people to walk and ride their bike and run and it's like a nice park. Almost, you know, linear Park that people can so, is it something like that is, what's come out of some of this, this work? Exactly. I mean, one of the best examples recently at 2013 and 2018 in Sydney Australia, they were tough. Asked with a similar problem that there was some underutilized land or land with potential, what might we do as a, as a collective. And so I believe the team was made up of state government professionals private developers consultants in landscape and Architectural design, Urban Design, but also oil companies and companies Is that okay? In petroleum.

14:32 So again we've the potential for other assets like service stations that are maybe coming to the end of life. There's some land there. How do you repurpose and this team? Collectively, identify an opportunity for more Community Gardens particularly to tie in with the opportunity for self-reliant communities growing, their own food in Grove, high density, Urban - yeah, I love that. So the egg growth project is actually now underway. There's actually communities starting plant and benefit from the yield there, harvesting their crops in Sydney with the support of these organizations.

15:14 So you know these are they using the the using the produce to feed, you know like you know homeless shelters or you know schools or or you know local communities that are taking advantage of the opportunity to grow these this produce in these in these areas. I think that's what the solution looks like. It's Kyle for sure. I mean, at the very beginning, I guess your crop yield your Harvest may be limited in its in its reach. But certainly, as you scale, this type of thinking, you start to reimagine what Supply chains look like and and self-reliance looks like, I mean, in Melbourne, right now, I'm in stage 4 restrictions. We've got a covid outbreak that everyone's trying to get on top of We've got a curfew and now I can't go out after 8:00 p.m. This is a, I've never even as a teenager, I wasn't didn't have a curfew.

16:09 So anyway, please don't know what this feels like. Do you do Mi so but it's all really important, but some of the interesting things is, you know, our abattoirs where we do food processing there. Now on limited output, they've had to reduce the workforce to reduce that that chance of transmission and Yeah, we're staying some restrictions on the food that we would ordinarily access and so yeah, communities will continue to think well how do we become more resilient to these types of ice is thickest? I think to this whole covid, pandemic is really kind of made a lot of people think about their own, you know, use of their own land to, to grow their own crops and be their own Urban Farmer themselves.

16:58 I mean, my wife and I just recently You know, back in March, we said, you know what, we're going to grow a garden and this will be for covid actually head, and we knew we were going to plan this. We put 18 raised beds out in the side yard and we've got every type of produce going on right now and flowers and things like that. And we were thinking, hey let's get off the supply chain will. Just have her own, you know, food and to have, you know, these Gardens and these little you know, produce set areas within the city that you're talking about for people to you know, take advantage of the area and the In the produce that is phenomenal. I think that's a great outcome for that and for repurposing those properties, I'm sure that the the transit authority are pretty happy with it.

17:41 Really and I think not just happy with the outcome for the community, but really pleased for the outcomes for the people who've worked on this idea. I think there's wonderful upside for organizational culture for recognizing, the entrepreneurial and creative Spirit of people actually see some of these ideas. Come to life is a remarkable experience for people. So early in their careers that may not necessarily have platform. I have to change established and then we can smart suit is provides that that playground, which is great. So I saw one project that came out it's just a recent one to some like I want to say it was like, a surf, surf lab or something like that where they're creating a artificial you know, Barrier Reef I'll to you know, protect erosion of the sand on the beach and in some specific City there on the Ghost. And I thought it was like pretty ingenious and I was curious like do we is that does that going to get, you know, some legs, you know in you know real world here we're going to be able to take that to you know, prototype.

18:54 Well, it sounds really cool, so I would, I would hope so. But I think we have to be really realistic with programs like smart seeds. There's a lot of similar programs, run all over the world. So it's not. So it started in 2012, the term. Could stolen or Design Lab was not as well established back then certainly over the last 10 years, we've seen a growth in these ways of working and thinking what established organizations like government and private Enterprise needs to continually. Work on is how do we mobilize on new ideas? Particularly again in the organization's I work mostly with they are founded on robust science and evidence and Engineering.

19:48 Yeah, and and thrive on analytical thinking, and with these complex challenges, we can't apply those alone. We need to augment that those high value skill sets with creativity and entrepreneurial ISM. Experimentation Learning by doing and there's still a long way to go before. We can actually efficiently work towards some of these are the eight years ideas, right? So some of the ideas that are being you know brought forth and you know conceptually they're fantastic, right? I mean they're just you know they're really creative and you ingenuitive and but they can't always really be implemented.

20:30 Can they I think is that is that some of the challenges that you see? E with with some of the outcomes here. Absolutely, it's hard. That's materialize it to the next level. Yeah. And that I mean they might have limited potential when it comes down to it might be the value that we set out to achieve. We've made some assumptions and either the feasibility or the desirability or the viability doesn't stack up. So but often we don't get that far. We don't learn enough to make that. Form decision to say, it's been good. We've decreased the process but we're going to park that because we think there's value elsewhere, we often don't get there.

21:11 We we caught the stagnation Chasm between coming up with a high potential idea and acting on it to learn more things, really slow down and it's this Gap that we work really hard to try and enable organizations to be comfortable in that space and to focus on tangible outcomes. Incremental experimental outcomes prototyping is a wonderful tool to be able to use to bring these ideas to life. Yeah and really pump pump life into them because otherwise they stay as ideas and ideas are cheap and you got to try things right, you got to try things and I think it's the process. That these emerging leaders are going through that, they're going to be able to take that experience into their next project or their next level of, you know, worked at they're going to have to Involve with and have a new way of thinking about solving a problem, right?

22:08 And we've got some great alumni stories from Smart side. So we've you know, we've got these emerging leaders obviously very talented and smart seeds, may be their first one of their first forays into entrepreneurial thinking, right? But soon after we find These people starting their own initiatives. So we either as interpreters within the organizations, that employ them or entrepreneurs, they start their own Ventures. And so, we've got a number of startup Founders that have either left their day job or doing it as a Moonlighting. Moonlighting seguir great got a nice digs. Yeah, we've and they're enjoying that that outlet because they are able to put into practice not only. The analytical skills or the, the pigeonhole that they've been, you know, that the job description they've been given right?

23:08 You're able to explore these other outlets and bring it all together. So, we've got startups in data analytics, and particularly visualization. Lab startups in artificial intelligence, apply around water, and flood analytics. We've got a start-up in sir. Circular economy and more strategic and design approach to enabling circular economy solution, so, and and all of these are deeply rooted in purpose of social purpose. So, you're behind us. There's a cause behind it that there are getting behind, right? I mean, they see the just, you know, the benefit of it. Well, so I guess one of the big questions is if you were an emerging leader, how do you get invited to participate in a smart City?

24:00 A query event, I mean, that's kind of, like, if I was a young professional coming in and be like, I want to be in that program. Exactly. So there's programs running now or trying to run. Now it's very here we've had to Pivot a little bit of Melbourne is is in train so we've got a program in Melbourne right now, okay? I would suggest the best way is to get to the website and get in contact with smart seeds. Introduce yourself and say, look, I'm in my case miles from ghd, I love the purpose of the organization. Isshin in the program, I'd say they'd be benefit for for me and my colleagues and my organization get involved.

24:44 How do we go about it? And then we can, we can we can help because it's all it's a movement and it's very much a Grassroots movement. So we can identify with the energy lives and there's someone in Toronto that wants to get this up. We can get around that. That's, that's wonderful. And we and we can tap into our networks and and, and bring it to life. So if If a program isn't asking inviting right now, there's no reason why we can't start it up. Sure. Right. Well, I mean, that kind of segues into my next question is like, so I see smart seeds been around for eight years now, right? And are there plans to expand it to the United States, you know, we're in Toronto, we're in North America, that one would just come down South of the Border here, a little bit, get into the United States. We'd love to probably have that program here and start out, you know, Group here in the United States. I can't imagine why we would not just be all over that. Yeah.

25:44 And and people calling for it. So I've been involved in early discussions and even discussions with a whole range of different organizations based in the States and Canada that are really key so Waterloo and Toronto that region the mid-con. So Dallas and Wonderful places like that smart seeds is known about and it's just a matter of building enough of a movement to bet. You know, that critical mass right now to be able to launch it. And we're getting, I think, what we've learned over eight years is how to quickly enable Smart seeds.

26:28 Your doesn't need to be a heavy Beast. It doesn't need to be intensive, we can use technology. We can Use very agile ways of working to get these things off the ground quickly. Well and there's a lot of collaboration with other individuals and other entities in this, this process. So, you know there's universities, you know, there's other businesses or municipalities. I mean, these young leaders aren't just people from say ghd there are mean they're from all over. You know, when I when I looked at some of the information in the footage on the on the website I mean you had you know a Great, you know, participation from a lot of different people from different, you know, parts of the the, you know, the region that you are doing the, the events and individual businesses.

27:20 I think that's a great, you know, model to go from because then you're bringing different disciplines and different ideas different experiences into this process. Exactly. Yeah. And we've had wonderful support from as you say, universities both in a research and development. Capacity. So a lot of universities spin-out remarkable startups and technologies that take, they take to Market. And we've had teams mentored by these startup Founders. Particularly in Adelaide in Australia, we had some wonderful startup, Founders mentoring teams, providing that entrepreneurial mindset and band support and also the universities who are interested in supporting their alumni, those that they've had, that it Brad. A Jew at enter, the workforce, maintaining that connection and supporting him in the next phase of their careers wonderful support again.

28:15 So we we host smart seeds events, within University design, Innovation Labs. We include entrepreneurs that have spun out of Academia or research and development from universities. It's very much in. We've got an ecosystem, around example, and smart seeds is housed under the G, HD digital All business. Is that correct? That's right. So smart seeds has endured a lot of change and that is Testament to the value. So when it started, it was a it was an initiative in one place at one time in Melbourne. And then we enabled it to get off the ground in other places in Australia. I tell about New Zealand have taken it to another level. They really have yet a wonderful country for collaboration. They I admire the collaborative.

29:10 Relationships. They're very powerful. So New Zealand's doing well. We've run it in the UK as well. So but yeah, for smart seeds to survive its and Thrive. We found different ways to show host it. And so for when G HD digital was born a number of years ago, we saw a natural fit so that and as usually the ghd leader that Connery really is establishes that initial relationship and those regions are those towns and those cities that you're implementing, you know, smart seeds, they go out and they develop those those core, you know, connections to start the process, right? What I've learned is, you can't force anything under duress, very much driven on passion.

30:03 So we go where the energy lies and, and we've got wonderful people. Across the networks that get up very easily for this. They give a lot. That's awesome. That's great. Well, so you've kind of, you know, transitioned a little bit since I last, you know, met with you. So you're kind of slowly transition to maybe not so Forefront in the smart seeds Arena, but you're still supporting and being in the background and collaborating and solicit facilitating. But what are you working on? Now these days Yeah, so it's a it's a it's an evolution I guess for me I started my career as a water resource engineer.

30:48 So an environmental engineer focused on surface water particularly flood and how Urban drainage interacts with people and livelihoods healthy river systems and waterways and biodiversity, how again development can support. We Exist with natural environment. So that's my background. I moved more into Innovation and using design-led approaches to solve complex issues. And I guess that understanding of the connectivity of everything is really helpful, so the environmental engineering background. I brought in, by bringing that strings to a more of a systems thinking approach to solving problems, smart seeds. I mean, that is an awesome playground where a lot of I still get to exercise a lot of this. This thinking and and I guess now you'll know Casey could see the excitement.

31:44 You just talked about you light up, I see. And so now I focus a lot of my effort on working within established government and private Enterprise, and shedding light on some of the really complex issues. Their businesses are facing so it can relate to how they might continually meet the rising needs Spectators that their customer base or their communities, it may be to explore how they might take up new technologies and the possibilities of new technologies. It might be around regulatory pressure and how do they shift their business to be able to apply and the like grow into new regions a whole range of different questions.

32:36 But what I love about design thinking, Thinking and creative problem, solving techniques is, they're very flexible, very adaptable and the I guess the commonality is that, you're really looking to turn challenges into opportunities, and you can apply processes mindsets, your own experience and perspectives and other people's experiences and perspectives. And that, and I guess the toolkit of designers to one make sense of the complexity and understand how it all works. Works holistically, identify who is feeling the pain in the system, right? Right, where the issues are and how they experienced that at a, at a personal and cultural level.

33:23 And then really hone in, on the points of intervention, we can't solve the whole thing. It's, it's an ongoing Dynamic setting Beach. Pick your bow. We can only one thing, right? Yes, we move through all that complexity, get some Focus. And then start coming up with some really creative approaches to solving those. That's what I really enjoy. So I enjoy immersing myself in very different problems and so an example would be this year and as a as a water engineer. I know a the quite a lot about suing networks. Yeah, and sewage zoo and I Works pesky csos combined sewer overflows to really examine messing everything up, aren't they?

34:08 Yeah, it deserves. Rating under our feet but I've spent the last six months, with a water utility in New South Wales Australia. Yeah. Literally waiting into this problem of sewer, overflow. Hmm. And I thought I knew a little bit about the sewer system but I didn't know how problematic the systems can be and just how much of an impact they can have on people's lives. So so we're focusing on waste water overflows, that continually impact. People are residents businesses community members and repeatedly. So every time it rains, they might have sewer sewage flowing down their driveway, under their house, back up into their property.

34:59 This is not a unique or isolated case, a lot of coastal towns will have these issues. But what's really interesting about it is it's relatively taboo and not well appreciated. And so when we talk to customers that are experiencing waste water overflow, we start to realize just how difficult it is, to be able to address the problem and no one root cause. And so it's a long-term investment in a community to solve that problem through, you know, a lot of engineering infrastructure redos, you know especially here in the states.

35:44 We've Combined sewer overflows. Geez, when I started my career as an as a regulator and working for the office of water management and I was doing surface water sampling and basically assessing fish kills due to see us. You know, so you know flood would come in heavy rain, you know, and massive fish kill would happen and really go figure out why that happened. Well, you know, all the dissolved oxygen gets sucked out of the Water with the, you know, the sewage and killed all the fish and we had to go prove it and then go upstream and figure out well, where is the CSO coming from me? Where is the problem with the breakdown? And it's just a lot of a lot of information that we did a lot of studies on in though some of the watersheds that we were, you know, working in and just as a very eye-opening problem and a massive one to solve.

36:37 Because here right now they're trying to separate the sewage and the storm water completely. Yeah. Let's keep it completely separate and there's a big push right now in the u.s. to do that with a lot of municipalities and it's a big cost to the infrastructure in the design. But I told and retold in Australia, we generally have that, we don't have combined systems, well, they're not designed to be combined in designed to be separate, they've forgotten how one. Well yeah, you have either accidental connections, so a new development, May connect to the, you know, the wrong pipe instead of connecting. Ting your roof drainage to your storm water Network.

37:18 You erroneously connected to the Sewer, all of a sudden you've got rain water, entering a system that was designed only to carry. So it's yeah, of course that that will overflow more regularly in during rainfall. If enough people do that across a catchment, right? Yeah, severe problem and probably more often and so that's certainly the case. And, you know, non-compliances well Developers choose to make the wrong connection. Kalani. Yeah. Cost Savings Time Savings? Yeah, lack of care. So there's there's issues there. But then, also you've got non-human actors like trees. They're just getting into the system. And are you making in and blocking? I mean, you can't hold trees accountable. So they know it's so many issues, right? And they're just words just infrastructure. Just crumbles over time, you know, that's it. Put in with Old Clay, terracotta pipes and you know, or brick and now, you know, it's degraded over time. So it's exactly.

38:22 But now that's great and I'm glad that you're working on that. That's, that's very interesting. So mi I love this has been a great podcast. I mean we've got a lot of really good information on Smart seeds and and and that program and the emerging leaders that are, you know, able to get involved in from all different disciplines and different, you know, areas of the industry you A lot of great leaders that are mentoring. These people, I think that's phenomenal, because really, if we don't pass it down to the younger generation that that's, you know, that's the key, right? We have to be able to do that Mentor. Mm, bring them as much information. We can provide them to learn from and I love it and I think that love to see a smart seeds Program, start here in the u.s. somewhere.

39:07 I don't know where but I'd love to see it happen. In think it'd be great. One of the things I like to close with the podcast is Is this one question? It's up to how are you transforming the industry in the way you approach design lead Innovation? You know, you know what ghd? So what do we think there? Certainly what? I bring two. The table is I an appreciation of the engineering design process. What drives it the purpose of engineering. I'll often it is to provide a reliable stable solution for people and provide a safe environment for people either it's a bridge design making sure people can safely cross. If it's a pipe design, making sure that it's right there is a surcharge If it doesn't impact people and property. So I can understand that mindset. But what I often bring is a different lens which is focused on The Human Experience, right?

40:14 How do water services impact people's lives? What do the social sciences say about people's expectations and motivations? How to behaviors impact the way that engineering Solutions are meant to work, but actually conflict. And so bringing that That appreciation to The Human Experience. The fact that humans aren't rational. This is a shockingly. This is a shocking realization to the things and he is and I started also economics. And I mean an old-school assumption in economics is just assume people think rationally, and that's disastrous. Right? So bringing a more behavioral understanding of society and culture will help all our organizations and their Collective effort create Livable places more livable systems, more sustainable systems.

41:07 So I really enjoy that and collaborating with all kinds of people, you know, strategist designers, technologists, Regulators, Unity members and bringing all those perspectives together and, and making sense of it, together coming up with some ideas that people believe in and buy into is what it's all about for me now. That's good. I mean, HD is exist. I mean that we are lucky to have you mi workin for us here in in Your Capacity and thank goodness. You're there because you're making a big difference. I can tell. All right, so but hey how do you how do people get a hold of you?

41:50 Email is good. I mean depending where you are around the world emails always good. So it's my name Mi dot coca at GH d.com. Okay and then that's great miles. I really appreciate you. Coming on to the show tonight. You know we're I'm looking forward to getting this out to the listeners here soon. You know this has been a great show to listen to all the great things and smart seeds have been doing that all the work you've been involved with and thanks for coming on and I'll put a little post up on the how people can get a hold of you on my website and on the the liner notes on the the podcast itself, when we publish it and make sure you get it out there on your social media networks, okay.

42:31 But Absolutely sure. Thank you for the discussion and yeah, I love being in contact. I always walk away from these discussions, feeling a little bit more energized. So absolutely that. We're looking forward to hopefully here soon. We'll see face to face down the road. Absolutely. All right, thank you guys. Bye bye. I want to thank our guests miles, Coker for coming on to the show today if you have questions about the smart seats design, That Innovation program or Water Management Services. Please feel free to contact miles. Coker via email at Mi dot Coker at GH, d.com or visit the smart seeds website at www.ctvn.org. Will also put a link to his contact information on my website to listen to Future environmental transformation podcast.

43:22 You can check us out on anchor, iTunes Spotify, Google podcast and other podcast networks, or from my website at A d.com. Thanks for listening. And until next time, make a positive impact in someone's life today.