#7 - Cesar Harada (French-Japanese Ocean Tech Designer & Entrepreneur with Dyslexia & Dyspraxia) in Paris

This week Laurel sits down in Paris with César — French-Japanese designer, ocean technologist, educator, environmentalist, TED Senior Fellow, and PhD candidate — who has never been diagnosed with ADHD, but was diagnosed with dyslexia, dyspraxia, and an epileptic condition after a truly unforgettable childhood head injury. What follows is one of the most wide-ranging conversations yet: shapeshifting boats, the BP oil spill, floating oyster farms, hydrogen energy, sea level rise, Fukushima radiation — and what it means to have a brain that runs on emotional urgency, hates wasting other people's time, and organizes 15,000 people in a two-database Notion system.

🎙️ Guest: César — ocean innovator, designer, TED Senior Fellow, PhD candidate in ocean innovation, Paris/global

🧠 All My Friends Have ADHD is hosted by journalist and filmmaker Laurel Chor — exploring neurodivergent minds across cultures, careers, and continents.

📍Recorded in Paris on May 31, 2025

📝 Description generated with AI assistance.

Watch episode videos on YouTube
Follow us on Instagram: @allmyfriendshaveadhd
Follow Laurel on Instagram: @laurelchor

New episodes every other Monday. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I needed a clap on my face.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

All my friends have eight.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

All my friends have early Hyfriends have thank you, Caesar, for joining me today on this is the seventh episode. But first, I'm going to attempt to introduce you. So here we are in Paris, which is where your mother is from, and which is where you grew up. Mostly, yes. So Cesar is a French Japanese designer, environmentalist, educator, and entrepreneur, passionate about ocean technology, impact innovation, and education based in question mark.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Saint-Maru.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Saint-Maru, France.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

You do a lot of things. I'm not even sure a lot of this bio is accurate anymore, because you're constantly evolving as a human and as an educator and as a scientist. As a friend. As a friend. You do a lot of really cool things. What are the issues that you care about? Like what is your what are the different issues and missions you have right now? Because I feel like you have so many.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I say I would say like the constant one that I've been doing for the last 20 almost 20 years now is something related to the ocean. Um and then using like technology and working with like people on the ground to address those challenges related to the ocean. But I'm about to so I'm in the process of writing a PhD about it. Uh so that's gonna be my my primary focus for the next six months, maybe. Uh, but I am also putting my own career on pause right now because um my father recently passed away, and uh he's a monumental stone sculptor, and so I'm gonna be working on his legacy uh in order as well to put my mom into a place of safety so she is more comfortable in her life. Because it was set up as a production uh and now it's no longer production because he's not there. So, how do we make it a little more like a museum sort of experience? And so that's what I'm gonna be working for the next, I think, almost two years.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

What is your PhD on?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

My PhD is on uh ocean innovation broadly. But essentially I'm I'm like looking at the project I have done in the last uh 15 years and I'm trying to sort of make sense of it and trying to really objectively look at them and see like what worked, what didn't work. And um strategically, what should I do more of or some stuff that I should do less of. I'm trying to see like what are the biggest mistakes I've done as well, and try not to reproduce them and look at best practice outside and then see what are the things of the future that we can do even better, trying to propose a methodology other people could use.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Right. Because I think that's why I always have a hard time describing what you do, because you're always working on all these very different projects. When we first met, you were working on protei. Yes, I think shape-shifting boats, shape-shifting remote-controlled Yeah, I mean it could be a boat in which you are. In fact, I have built one that you can build a life-size boat, but they were these sort of undulating boats, that's right. Sailboats. Yes, yes. And you were also experimenting using them to clean up the ocean, right? Clean up oil spills, that's right. And also to measuring plastic pollution. Measure plastic pollution, measure radiation, is that right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So there was that. Can you describe that? Because I'm not doing it.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Sure, okay. So um very briefly, uh, I was looking for a way to clean up the BP oil spiel in the Gulf of Mexico where I stayed for almost two years. I was living in New Orleans for almost two years, and um um it was very inefficient. They use shrimping boats. So these are like quite small boats, and they have two nets on the side. And I found that the oil is drifting down the wind. So if you sail up the wind, dragging an absorbent, you could catch a lot of the material. And uh sailing a sailing boat with a lot of material behind is very difficult to maneuver. So I was looking for a way to better control payload. And so I started playing with like different designs of rudders and found uh through a collaborative process of open hardware, so it's like open source software, so working with a bunch of people around the world that we could have a better control if the whole boat became shape-shifting. And that's how the shape shifting boat came out. Uh, the technology was released later as an open source license. It was later picked up by NASA, MIT, and a bunch of other people to make airplane wings because it's basically the same aerodynamics. And uh you can make more efficient uh airplane wings that can have more lift, that are safer, that can save a lot of fuel. Um and the recent um iterations that I've done last year is instead of being a shape-shifting boat, it's like a modular train. It's like I call this ocean train. So I have a boat that is half finished, now it's 12 meters long, it's in five segments, and it's using the properties of a shape-shifting boat, but it's adding new properties of energy saving like a freight train. So when you have a car, you're losing most of your energy by the friction you have on the road, which is necessary, otherwise you will be like flying off the road. And the second is that you're pushing a lot of air. And you know when you're doing this, you can feel the air. And if you do this in water, you know it's a lot harder.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

So you could save a lot of- So you were just waving your hand for those who can't see the video. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

So if you have a boat that is like a train, it's like many linkages, linked uh cars basically, you could save a ton of energy because the first boat is pushing the water away, but the other one is just trailing behind. So and so the biggest biggest bottleneck for like international trade oftentimes is uh uh canals of Panama and you know all these places. But if your boat was really long, arguably you could really reduce the number of people you have on board, the amount of energy you need, and and so on and so on. So you but again, like I had this idea, but it's just too much, it's a lot of resource to to measure this, to do this really well. So my PhD I also use it as a way to reflect uh strategically, like what is what should I focus my energy on? Because you can't you can't do something very well unless you dedicate yourself to it. And that's if this can reduce like global emissions for shipping, which which is huge, which has it has its potential, then I need to have the resource to do that properly.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Right. What is the global environmental impact of shipping in terms of carbon emissions?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Um I think it was less than I think it was less than three percent. Um I think uh it represents 90% of the tonnage of the stuff that we that we consume. So like in this room, pretty much everything has been shipped. Either it's it's raw material, when it was the aluminum ores or you know the wood for sure, like all transported by ship. Um so in tonnage is the biggest one by very far. But in terms of emission, I think it was less than five, it was about five percent, five to ten percent. So the proportion of um I mean it's very efficient already. But given that it's so much of the volume, there's still like a lot of room for improvement. Right. Um when COVID happened, there was a really interesting statistic that that came out is that we expected that when we have less shipping, the emissions will be dropping. The opposite happened because shipping still does emit so much uh aerosols that it basically blocks the sun. And so so actually it was the opposite that happened. Less shipping, and we had a spike uh in in temperatures, mainly because of the lack of of boats, because they were creating an artificial layer of pollute so much that they were protecting us from global warming. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

That's yeah, sad.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

That that was that was very surprising because we expected less ships and we're gonna have, you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Right. Yeah. Yeah. That thing you said about how you can't really uh go very far in something unless you focus. I see. Okay, so that was one project. And then I know there's been other projects. There was a big oyster.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

So we're jumping ahead.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Oh, I mean, yes, but it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah, so I mean, because we can we can go in the order of your PhD. How convenient that your PhD is basically a history of all your diverse projects.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

So what was after that?

SPEAKER_00 9:03

After that, um Maker Bay. So creating Maker Bay, of course. Yeah, creating the the infrastructure to build more of those robots that ended up being like a venture of its own.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Right. Describe Maker Bay.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Okay, so most familiar most people are familiar with uh co-working space. Uh Maker Bay is like a co-working space, but for inventors. And so you have woodworking machine, um, metal, electric, electronics, uh, chemistry, biology, optics, acoustics, like anything you could imagine. Basically, we have like a lab/slash factory for everything, which is a pretty cool place to do it.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Yeah, it's awesome. For anyone in Hong Kong, you should definitely go. I've taken a couple of classes there. It's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Thank you. Um plug in maker beta or RG. Uh so yeah, so basically some big makerspace, but we were the first um big makerspace that was clearly focused on social and environmental impact in the world. So it means that most of the other fabs, Fab Labs makerspace, they're focused on like innovation in general. But we say like we want to be focused on those things. And so yeah, so we initially were a social enterprise, so a company that has some tax arrangement, but eventually we got uh also a nonprofit status. Um, so we have two organizations, but they are like wrapped on around one brand. And at peak, we had uh seven branches in Hong Kong.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

Really?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, yeah. Uh but in com in collaboration with the Jockey Club. So we were had like mini make-a-bay into the youth centers in the low, low-income areas of Hong Kong. And so we trained hundreds of social workers and thousands of young people in like social innovation. And and recently we got the big SIE fund uh from in Hong Kong, and then we helped to launch 30 new companies.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Incredible!

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yeah, amazing.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Thanks. Yeah, and we got a we have a big run now from MTR, uh, and we are we are basically building a bunch of social enterprise in Hong Kong.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Wow, amazing, can't wait to see that. Okay, so we got Maker Bay.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

After that, it was probably the coral reef mapping robots. So we we build uh robots to use computer vision to map coral reefs. So basically, like there's a bunch of coral reefs in Hong Kong, but few people know about them actually. Um and because of that, actually, we ended up getting uh funded to travel to the Philippines, where people expect a coral reefs to be there. Uh so we basically make like a remote, remote control robot essentially at the beginning. Uh eventually we automated it so you could like plot GPS coordinates and it would just scan the ocean floor essentially. But what was really cool is that we developed this. We we trained an AI uh back in 2015. So it was like before the AI craze, really. So back then it was really always ahead of the curve. So but back then it was the tools were not as friendly, basically. Uh where we have to manually uh attack thousands of images of coral so they can recognize coral. But after three years of work, we achieve like uh greater accuracy than a first-year marine biology student in like a fraction of the time. Uh so basically it's it's a robot that scans the coral. But what's interesting is that we can give a single coral a single ID, and because we can then go the next season on the exact same coordinates that we can see like this particular individual coral, how how its health is faring. So that has huge implications. So it's a fraction of the cost.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Give us some some context into how corals are doing around the world.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Oh, not as a massive bleaching event, you probably know.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

I feel like there's always a massive bleaching event going on.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Yes. And uh uh last week, um, I think it was the Brighton Marine Laboratory, and I'm reading the I was reading the paper this morning. They just announced there was like 21% of the ocean has been darkening. And I was just like, What does that mean? Yeah, exactly. I was like, okay, so uh the ocean is sort of by default blue because of the atmosphere. Um, but if the temperature increases, you I mean if you you know there's more like algae generally. And when there's more algae, it tends to be more green. And green absorb more heat uh on the spectrum than blue. And as a result, the ocean has been darkening at an increasing uh speed. I mean, this kind of stuff like just blue. I I just I'm reading the paper this morning, so I'm still like trying to understand, but I'm freaking out because this is such a big news. So yeah, so the coral yet also not big news.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Also not big news, like only like not really breaking the news cycle at all.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

No, but but if that is true, this is like incredibly, incredibly alarming. Because if 21% of the ocean has uh become darker, and the ocean is 71% of the ocean of the planet's surface. Yeah, the ocean is big. This is uh this is this is as if like like some somebody told you like there's no more glacier and there's no more ice.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

And we didn't we didn't pay attention. We did we didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

In terms of the implications for the planet in terms of in terms of its ability, our ability to reflect heat. Is that what you mean?

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

At a time when we need as much help as we can.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yeah, but I guess I'm reading too much scientific literature on us, so I guess it's like messing up with my uh mind and emotion. Like I was reading as well this, like um, you know, the IPCC um climate projection are calculated on a 10-year basis. So even if we're on a spike right now, the the consensus that we can we're not we're not allowed to say, like uh reasonable scientists are not allowed to say that we are like in accelerating climate change, that we could be just in a spike. Yeah, but it but because since 2023 and 2024 and 2025 now are like we're clearly like coming out of that bound. Now there's a growing group of uh researchers saying like we can't just use a 10 year window for making this prediction. We have to reduce, I don't know, it's it's too big. Uh today we have we have to do it maybe on a five years or three years basis. And if the if that's the case, then we are we are heading for like three or four Celsius. And that's like a total totally different world. It's like it's like yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

But anyway, so uh coral anyway, the world falling apart aside corals.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

So corals uh in the 1.5 projection, they were supposed to be 90% dead by 2050 and 99% dead by 200. And that was on a 1.5 uh degrees projection. But now if we're going for like a three or four degrees, like that's all better off. Yeah. Like so all the models have.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Everything's getting cooked.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

At the same time, there's an increasing uh number of research, like especially in in Hong Kong and in actually in Southeast and Singapore, they are observing a resilience of particular species. So we might end up with just like an incredible maybe like most corals are dead, and there's a few species that are gonna be like it's gonna be the ones that have been able to hold on in Hong Kong waters.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Singaporean waters. Okay, so there's coral mapping robots. What next?

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Then I helped uh one of my students, two more students, to create this Clearbot company, which is using the same thing as uh CoralBot, but to clean up the plastic. Um then I was teaching at HKU, so I helped to build what is becoming the Department of Design in Hong Kong University. Um we build uh the first semi-autonomous vehicle in Hong Kong for Formula E. So we built the autonomous car.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Um another big project that we did.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Um you made that oyster, floating oyster thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Yeah, so we we started by building like really cheap fish farm for fish farmers and oyster farmers in Hong Kong. And then we were approached by uh oyster scientists to help to rebuild the reefs by creating in the lab a an oyster hatchery. And then we found that it would be much cheaper to make an oyster hatchery on the water directly. So we we figured that um well there are two reasons. The first is when you make oyster babies in um in the lab, um when you bring them back to the to the ocean, because the ocean is much more contaminated, there's a high mortality. And the second is bringing seawater by trucks to the top of the hill in Hong Kong U is not the most like isn't isn't toilet flushing water in Hong Kong seawater? Some of it, yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Just just take it out of the toilet.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Thank you for your advice. Uh yeah, yeah. From the peak, gravity.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

Yeah, exactly. So, okay, sorry, I interrupted.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

So then we um we made basically a floating uh oyster hatchery. Um, but it was as an art project, so it was financed as an art project, which was really cool. And because it was an art project, we worked with local oyster farmers in uh La Foshan to make it look like a giant oyster, so it can be part of the Instagram ability. Of course, very important of the place. Um and then and then while we were building, we had four typhoons hitting Hong Kong. So, and for insurance question, I mean it was really a nightmare, but basically they forced us to build the platform on the water during the typhoon. And because I was really worried that our batteries that are powering our pumps and computers would be falling into the water, I started to dabble into hydrogen production. Because if the hydrogen uh energy storage was falling into the water, it's not a big deal, it's just hydrogen in the water, H in H2O, just binds and whatever, like nobody would even realize this there. And so after I left Hong Kong in 2022, I continued to experiment with floating solar hydrogen. Because actually, I didn't really even realize, but we we did the first floating solar hydrogen installation on this oyster farm because it was just uh a rational thing to do if we don't want to contaminate oysters. And so we had I did some experiments in Bali, and we we made more advanced systems for floating solar hydrogen. And um yeah, and so um, and maybe the last project I have done that uh that's related to like ocean, is uh I traveled to the Philippines um and I work with the local community, trash pickers, surfers, uh fishermen, indigenous uh community, and um we prototype what a floating village could be like to prepare for sea level rise and like extreme weather. And the artwork, which is like a giant like model, architectural model of like six meters by six meters, uh made of like hundreds of small parts, ended up being acquired by the National Science Museum. It's called the Maine Museum in Makati. Yeah, so now it's part of the permanent collection, and uh it's in the store, it's in the timeline of um what the International Ocean Station could be and trying to position the Philippines as a producer of um maritime uh innovation. And that's a project that that I may want to continue.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

So there's all these projects, yes, and some of them have high potential uh economically and uh in terms of environmental impact, in terms of uh economic impact. And so the um my question is like, okay, how which one should I prioritize? Which one can improve the life of people, the life of animals, uh can be like a long-term thing for climate change. So the the PhD is basically about that. It's like how do you make this project in an open source way and in a way that is scalable? And how do you decide which one is the most strategic to do? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

So you've done a lot of things, a lot of very different things. And uh throughout all of this, you were a senior TED fellow, your dad.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Setcast volunteer, measuring radioactivity in Fukushima.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Yes, you did that. You went to Fukushima and got on a boat.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah, I've been uh developing some uh low-cost uh machines to measure radioactivity at the bottom of the sea.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

So how do you And that was in the wake of the Quake Tsunami?

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Exactly, 2011. And I've been going regularly, but as a volunteer. So that's more like a side, I'm just volunteer for another organization. But I've been more involved recently.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Yeah. So you do a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

How how do you manage it all? We're gonna dive into your brain now.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Notion.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

Notion? Well, first of all, let's talk about let's talk about neurodivergence.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

So we you actually don't know if you have ADHD.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

You uh Dr. Laurel.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Well, yeah, this is the point of the podcast. I'm supposed to say I'm not a doctor. Um here, well, you're soon to be doctor, but not the medical kind. And I'm not a doctor of any kind. Um Um whether well I just asked if you did, right? Because when I look at my friends who do a lot of things, have a lot of energy, are really creative, you obviously fit the bill. So I just asked you. Um and you've never been diagnosed, and I don't even know if you had ever thought about it before. No. But you have other things that you've been diagnosed with, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Yes. I had an accident when I was four years old. I had like a pretty rough um impact on my forehead. Um I was watching I think the final of the World Cup. Which one? Uh I think it was Italy-Brazil. And uh I I was with another four years old, so I was four years old, and um uh her mom uh went to buy some cigarettes or something like this. And um there was a goal, and you know, sometimes when they put a goal, they do a uh a front flip or backflip. And I thought that was the coolest thing. And um my father is a stone sculptor, and the friends uh that we were at the house, he was his father was also a stone sculptor. So the furniture was made of stone, of granite.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

So the all the furniture was made of granite.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Not all of them, but the coffee table was a uh uh raw block of granite. And uh so I I I took my I walk backwards and I jump on the sofa and I did one and a half flip. So I did a It's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Do you remember this?

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Yeah, I mean that was pretty memorable. But I landed uh not on my feet, but on my head, on the corner of a granite block.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

I didn't know this.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Yeah, and so is that what this Yeah, that's that's that's you've had it to your four.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Yeah, so it was pretty deep. I could touch my brain for like a your brain? I can touch my brain for like a few seconds before the blood rushed. So what happened is because when you're a kid, your bone is very soft, so it didn't crack my brain. What it did it it uh it basically chopped uh like a slice of of of of bone, so it just like sliced. And so that's why like I I I could touch, but I didn't touch my brain brain. I apparently I touched the bag that uh holds the the brain.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

The membrane?

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Yeah, brain membrane. So brain membrane. So I was like poking my brain membrane, I guess, in the mirror. Um and then the mom came back from cigarettes and like she completely fainted because I I put blood everywhere in the house. And uh and then we had to call the ambulance for her because I mean uh we are only we have four years old, we didn't really know.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

So she left two four-year-olds unattended, comes back, sees you poking your brain, passes out, and then you have to call help.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Yeah. I mean, she woke up because I mean you're four years old, you don't know number 17. I mean, in France it's 17 or 18th, for the way so so she she came to her um senses, we called the ambulance, and then we were transferred there. And the reason why I have uh still um a scar is because it was a really ghetto area uh in a new um public social housing in France in the project in HLM, and they didn't have anesthesia in hospital.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

What?

SPEAKER_00 25:11

So I was teached alive uh at four years old.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Yeah, so that's why I was like, ah, like screaming. But anyway, so because of this accident, I suppose I was diagnosed later with um dyslexia, dyspraxia, and I have um uh uh epileptic terrain, which means I don't like uh I don't have spontaneous epilepsia, but I can a heart crisis in particular conditions.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Wow. Maybe it made you even smarter though.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

I don't know, but um anyway, it's just the way it is.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

So Yeah. Yeah um well the things that you're diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia are very common in people with ADHD.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

So that's another reason why I thought whether or not you have ADHD, that your brain is super interesting and that you could have a lot of insights for people with ADHD and other types of neurodivergence. So getting these diagnoses of dyslexia and dyspraxia, when did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Um so I did I did a master's degree in France in animation film. Uh so I I am fellow filmmaker.

unknown 26:18

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Yeah, yeah, so that's my first master's degree. Um at the same time, I I felt like uh I was an environmental activist, very, very active back then, but then I felt like it was very um removed from having a real impact. So I wanted to do something more practical. So I went to study industrial and interactive design because I felt like that would be a way to and so when I arrived in the UK at the Royal College of Art in in London, they had a very comprehensive um testing. And I think back then it was 2007. It was really the moment in the UK where they were starting to be much more inclusive and realized that they would have better results if instead of ignoring people's condition, they were supporting it. And so I found that they were really supportive staff at the RCA, and um so we got a bunch of free tests, and uh so I tested for dyslexia and dyspraxia, and um and then epilepsia was a bit later. I just I just have an epileptic um crisis in two my first one in 2009. And then I had a I had a few uh like in the following years, but I haven't had a crisis for the last 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

That's great. Yeah, yeah. So dyslexia is I'll let you describe it.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

I I do have like when I write, I do like switch letters quite a bit, and I do like have problems like jumping lines and and I have a I feel like I have a particularly sort of pliable relationship to grammar. Like I feel like I'm I'm very flexible grammatically.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Um also multilingual.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

So I feel like that would do because you grew up speaking French and French and Japanese, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

And then the dyspraxia, I think I really realized when I was doing uh what is dyspraxia? Oh, sorry. Um so people experience it in different ways. Uh I have a terrible sense of direction, which is which is really a problem because because I'm a big life is happens in three dimensions. You know, also because like people often look at me like I'm the leader of you know the company and stuff, so people tend to want to follow me. You know, like I I don't know. I have this like very like passive sort of like leadership presence. Uh so people tend to like follow me, and I have really no idea where we're going. And also, okay, I've learned to love it. I I love to get lost. Uh so uh when I go into a city, like I really, really enjoy getting lost and ending up in the weirdest place. I absolutely love it.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

So, as someone who has zero sense of direction, like I really think that part of my brain's missing.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

And I think that kind of because people are always like, oh, that's so funny, because you know you're an explorer, you travel so much, I would think that you have a excellent, exactly. You have an excellent sense of direction. And I actually think it's the opposite. I think that because I never have a exactly, I never know where I am. I never have a real sense of of where I am in space. Therefore, I'm never really lost because I was never found.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Lost is a feeling.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Or yeah, you can't be lost if you never knew where you were in the first place. Truly. And like I and I think that's also why like I don't necessarily ever feel that far from anything. Like I maybe when I was younger, like really young, I'm gonna get homesick, but like I never feel like I'm super far, or like or or or because you're not, yeah, because I'm I'm here, I'm here right now, and that's all I know. Um, so dyspraxia has something to do with your sense of direction. I thought it had to do with your body.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Yeah, so yes. Okay. So I'm coming to that. So I feel like I discovered that I had that when I was ju when I was doing judo and when I was doing basketball, because I don't think I'm especially good in basketball, but I did put some like incredibly unlikely buckets. And um and at the same time, I really like crash down because because I feel like my uh same like grammar, I feel like my sense of space is completely related to what I'm trying to do. So when I'm writing a sentence, for example, like whatever is the keyword in my heart or in my mind, I sort of like reorganize the grammar around it. When I'm trying to put a bucket, even if I'm if I'm like upside down, my body would just like adjust and I would still like throw it. Or if I'm doing judo, and even if I have my head in the other person's crutch, like I'm I'm like like like right. Like I'm I feel like my sense of wording and space is completely relative, like subjective and like like pliable.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

But what is dyspraxia?

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Dyspraxia is uh typically uh the symptoms of like lack of physical coordination, but which is not the case for me. I think I'm very well coordinated. Yeah, but uh just very differently from a normal person. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

I don't get seasick as well, like I'm oh yeah, me neither. Is that a thing to not well because if you if your if your sense of space is so like distorted, maybe you don't see adjusting.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

You're not trying to yeah, because I guess seasickness is almost like your brain is reacting to not being able to find its solid.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Exactly, solid ground. I I'm sure because I I crossed the Pacific in a in a cabin with six uh other guys and they were all throwing up on me like non-stop for like five days.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

You're you're fine.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

And I was like wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

So when you did the testing at RCA, was there a reason why you sought out testing?

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Uh no, I think I think it was just encouraged. Uh there were they were free software given if you had a condition. And I think they might have been like some like financial help as well. Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

Like my. So were you surprised when you got the results?

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Yeah, yeah. Because uh I I felt I'm I I felt like I'm highly functioning, so I was like, why I I was training in the Imperial Judo, Imperial Judo Club, uh, which are like some of the national champions. I was I was uh I just finished writing a master thesis. I was just like, nah, there's no way. Or or maybe I had a little hope that I had it because that you had what? That um uh dyslexia. Dysplexia came out of nowhere, like I had no idea.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

How do they test for that?

SPEAKER_00 32:30

They do physical, a bunch of uh physical tests and they put like earphones and they had your eyes and you do a bunch of.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

So did you believe the diagnosis? Do you?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

I I typically believe science. Typically.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Do you think do you like identify with near the label neurodivergence? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

You know, it's funny, like I feel it's like when you ask old people, of course, old gay people, uh, you know, like whether they are gay, like a lot of people who are gay, they're like, okay, I'm not gay, but yeah, it's true. I've been living the last 10 years with uh with a man, but I'm not gay. You know, you know, there's a sort of like resistance, right? And I feel like um my generation was the generation where where it became less stigmatized. And like implicitly, I I don't identify as a neurodivergent. Right. Even though I clearly was diagnosed as one.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

I think of you as someone with a very special brain. You know, outside of these labels, even before I knew how to ADHD, like obviously to me, your brain functions in a way that allows you to not only see all these different things in the world, like all these possible solutions, uh, and find ways to get them done, but also you like you get them done. Like you you just listed out all the things you've worked on the last 10 years, not even all, just scratching the surface. And it's an insane amount of creativity and productivity that emanates from your brain, apparently. Do you ever do you ever like think about your own brain? I also know just as your friend, like sometimes you have crazy sleeping schedules, and like you know, like so like your brain, I don't like saying different, because what does different mean? Like different from who, right? But you know, your your your brain is special in a way.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

I also hate that word too, but I feel I feel like a a lot of it comes down to self-confidence and believing your in your I'm not a self-confident person, but but I'm kind of like delusional in like when I when I imagine something is possible, I I'm one of those people that would just try it. Even if I even I think the the probability of it working is very low. Like I I have a I think it's because I had difficulties learning maybe at some point, or uh or at least like maybe there was a perception that I was really stupid at some point. Yeah, yeah. Why uh when I was in high school, like uh I didn't have really good results. I think it's maybe because more of my attitude and my my teachers really didn't like me. And so they they told me that I was gonna be such a failure that they would rather have me not even do the baccalaureate because I would drop the school average. Like they literally told me like, and then I had the uh best uh results in history of of of France after after dropping off.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

Yeah, you did? Yeah, you got the best back baccalaureating in a rapplique.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Arapliquet was my specialty, like it's basically design.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Um specialty in design.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Has that record been beat?

SPEAKER_00 35:54

I don't know. I haven't followed since.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Wow. Did your teachers say anything?

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yeah, they believed that I cheated.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Yeah. And then when they found out I did not, then they said, like, it's our best students. And I was so angry at them because they are the ones who abandoned me and I literally like pretty much drop off from school because of what they told me. And um that's why like I um I think especially since then, I really never believe in other people's opinion about me. Like I really couldn't care less. Or if they told me I cannot, I tend to think that, oh perfect. If you really think I cannot, that's that's a indication that I probably should, you know.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

So in a way it was a blessing.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Yeah, I was totally, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

At the time, did you believe them that when they said told you you weren't smart?

SPEAKER_00 36:41

I I don't know if I believed them, but it made me really angry because I mean who are they to to to put me in that in the trash, you know, like and I thought that they were incredibly arrogant and and I still think that a lot of people are like that, and I still think that most of human uh potential and capital is destroyed uh by lack of um self-confidence. And like self-confidence is not quite the word world, it's like self-belief, I guess, or yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

Um I know what you mean, but just self-esteem, really, right? Just just ha or having a strong sense of self and who you are and I self-esteem, I think it's like related to the ego almost.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Well self self-belief, I I I feel is closer. It's like believing that you can do something rather than like how other people perceive you, I feel. It's more like it's related to you, you, not like how people perceive you.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:40

So you went from again being told you're stupid to having the highest scores in the history of France in the specific exam.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Disciplines, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

And how where did you go from there?

SPEAKER_00 37:51

Because I got those uh crazy results, and I was the only one that year. Uh and in France, by the way, back then they would just publish the results like publicly.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

So it's that's so French.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

So you go and then there's just people are ranked by the results.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

That's so mean.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

And I was the only name in that category, and then I really I learned later that I was the only name in the country. Um I was the only person in that bracket of results because it was like almost um absolute results almost. And so, because of that, then you have the right to go to any school that you want. So if you are in the in certain category, you get um you get to go to uh Sciences Po or Polytechnique or N. And so I received this letter, which was a really shitty uh photocopy, like sideways, like I was like, this is my path to go. And so my professors were really excited that they will be able to tell that somebody from a technical education went to NR or something like this. And then I went to Art Decoratif, which is another design school, and they were so disappointed. And I was like, what's what what do you expect?

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Like I So just to rewind for those who don't know, so you were were you you were at like a technical school?

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Ecole Boule, which is like um the school that was created by Louis XIV, uh the the king of France, yeah. To build the guilds of uh elite craftsmen. So it's a craft school.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Right. And is that viewed upon differently?

SPEAKER_00 39:20

In the general society, it is seen as a very blue-collar school, but it's the elite blue-collar school because we build the castles and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

But for the for the for the blue-colour people, it's the top school.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Of course. Yeah. Yeah. And then you and you said you know, you had the the possibility of going to these really elite schools like Sciences Po and and it and the National Academy, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:40

And then I decided to go for art school.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

And they were disappointed.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

And they were super disappointed because they wanted to make a point that, oh, somebody from a blue-colour background can go there.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

So you didn't start off in science, you started off in art.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

That's right. Yeah. And uh my PhD isn't that I'm doing right now is in uh engineering school, but it's uh it's a design PhD.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

And that's another way in which I feel like your brain is unique in that you bridge these worlds.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Trying to. But uh because I don't have a bachelor in some science, like uh I could speak to uh like I in my colleagues in academia, they would be like, oh, but you never studied engineering or science, and so therefore you can't you it's impossible for you to do any of the thing technical.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

And you are building building things.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

And I'm just like, but but but I mean you compare me to you, what have you built? Yeah. And anyway, so it's there's always this weird thing. So I feel like I have a uh inferiority complex. I think I might do a bachelor in mechanical engineering just to just to have it on my resume at some point, just to shut them up.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Yeah, I mean, but also screw them, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Or do another PhD, maybe it's easy, it makes more sense because it may finish this one first.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Okay, so let's go back to your brain. Okay. Do you ever think about how your brain works?

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Um not until like yesterday night. Uh, because I met this uh old hacker. Okay, so there's this guy called Mitch uh Milch Altman, uh-huh, who's this like uh superstar hacker, and he he wanted to take us in Berlin. I was in Berlin yesterday. Uh he wanted to take us to uh Berlin. Uh no, no. That's your crowd. CCCB, which is the Keros Computer Club, Berlin, which is like the oldest hackerspace in the world. And uh so uh Mitch Altmann, for those who don't know, he's like a super famous guy who studied Noisebridge, which is like the oldest hackerspace in America in San Francisco. And uh he made a product which is a remote control, there's a universal remote control, and when you walk in the street, you could turn off any TV.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Wow. Yeah. So it's like the Adam Sandler movie.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

The Adam Sandler movie is using his device.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

Oh look at that.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Yes. And so now he found as a new research that uh shows that um if you radiate a certain wavelength in the eyeball of people, um, it can remove the plaque that you have in your brain.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

What?

SPEAKER_00 42:04

You know when you are when you are sleeping, if you sleep enough, you your brains basically flush the plaque. Yeah. And people who have Alzheimer's and so on is typically an accumulation of bad circulation or bad hygiene basically in your brain. And so, yeah, he just sort of convinced me to engage a bit more in my brain hygiene yesterday and night.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

Why? Because you weren't sleeping?

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Yeah, I guess so.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

So now you think about how your brain works as of yesterday. I have always told you to sleep more.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

I'm sure many, many people have told you to sleep more.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Yeah, but I but you know what? Like I okay, my justification.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Which which might be wrong, which probably is wrong, is that it's also it's the same way I think about eating. It's the same way I think about sex, is the same way I think about a lot of things, is that uh when you're in a natural environment, you're not sleeping on a regular schedule. You're not eating a regular schedule. Like, why would you become some sort of like employee to some dictatorial uh nine to five bullshit? Like, no, like you have to run to hunt something or you die when you're 35. Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

If you're lucky.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

It didn't seem natural necessarily to and have all these healthy habits either.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

No, I I'm thinking almost the opposite. I think like those uh healthy habits could make you less healthy and less less resilient.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

And what do you think now?

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Um I think it is true to a certain degree, uh like everything in moderation.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Like some stress is good.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Yeah. Do you ever think about how you think differently from other people?

SPEAKER_00 43:42

So, yes. And yes, and to continue a bit on the other point, which is transition, is that um I've been very driven by whatever I find is the most like exciting or the most pressing or the most like morally ambitious or like urgent thing to do. And um and so that has been. I I found that I found some sort of balance by when you are emotionally invested in something, it gives you energy. And if you use that energy to do something, then you don't feel tired necessarily because you're excited about it. And when you feel tired, I just sleep. And so I found that for me it was healthy to manage my emotions basically by using this emotional energy into work. So for me, it sort of makes sense. It's just like, yeah, I'm excited to do something, I just I just do it. If I'm tired, I just sleep. And so for me, like other people would say, like, oh, you're not sleeping. But just like, well, I have the energy to do this right now. And if I don't do this, I feel stressed or I feel regretful.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

So you you have this urge that you have to act on.

unknown 44:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Otherwise, you're like.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

I'm well, I mean, if you're doing something that's like not just about you as well, then there's the urgency of other people. So let's say I'm working on the BP oil spiel, and there are people who are literally like killing themselves and losing their families because there's oil on their on their shorelines, and you want to be helping them to clean the beach or to, you know, uh attack BP so that to force them to clean, or there's a sense of urgency. And so and and I'm sure you have the same because you go into like war theaters and so the world is not uh uh about you. And if I die at 35 doing something that I really like in the way that I like, yeah, fuck yeah. Like I'm um, yeah, great. But I've also learned to sleep when I'm tired. And if I can do those two things, then I feel I'm pretty balanced. And if Do you feel balanced? Yeah, I feel pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 45:30

That's good. As long as you feel good, right? Yeah, yeah. So how do you stay organized on top of everything? Do you feel like it's easy for you to stay organized?

SPEAKER_00 45:38

I I know that a lot of people, when they see me at first, maybe my hair is a little bit messy or whatnot, and they assume that I'm actually like pretty like chaotic. But people who know me like really well, they know that I'm like crazily organized and I like file everything. I'm like I'm the secretary of my household.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

Like I do the You're an archivist. Yeah, I'm an archivist, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

I mean, I'm really I'm pretty stringent about Google Calendar Invites, but you're like next level.

SPEAKER_00 46:06

I'm like a Nazi of Google Calendar. Which is good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

It's good, it's good, it keeps everyone organized, right? Yeah. Okay, so you're very have you always been really organized?

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Um yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I think I've And it comes easily. Yeah, also, also I think it's also like a cultural thing. Like uh in Japan, you know, when I was a kid, like when somebody gives you an appointment at a time and a place, you have to be there at the time and a place, otherwise the world falls apart. The world falls apart for one, and then then you're gonna be the shame of your family.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

And all your ancestors.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

And then and then there's gonna be trouble because everybody is super precise about the schedule and things just fall into a place. And so I don't know. I've always yeah, I've always been pretty organized. Yeah. But I do have like uh like a boundless energy, but I do things, you know, in time and place, and I do value other people's time a lot as well. Like I really hate to waste people's time.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

Yeah, how do you get your energy out?

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Can't really say it. Uh it used to be it used to be like a lot of a lot of sports, different types of sports. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

Because you have so much energy.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 47:17

Has your energy weighed like varied over time?

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Yeah, for sure. Like I think I think it was it was really like uh it felt like I had more than 24 hours of energy um in a day before.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

Yeah, I feel like that. I always say I meant for like a planet with 30 hour days.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

Yeah, well, so that's that's interesting. I never met somebody who said said that. Yeah, so I felt like that.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

It's an ADHD thing, actually.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Is it? Oh shit.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

Again, I'm not saying.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Yeah, yeah. Um so I now I feel like I'm okay. I have this fantasy basically because I did live like this at some point when I was like traveling on the road, like to go to sleep with the sun and wake up with the sun following the seasons. So having like super long nights of sleep in the winter and like really short in the summer. Um and then just like excess like doing something physical the whole day, and it really felt amazing. Yeah, I've I've been able to do this a couple of times in my life, and every time I felt it was I felt so alive and so strong.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

Um sometimes I feel like I mean I've never actually thought this before, but like I feel like be well suited for being a farmer.

SPEAKER_00 48:29

Yeah, I mean it's it's like physical labor, yeah, urgency that you can't deny. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:35

Schedules with nature.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

Animals.

SPEAKER_02 48:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

And yeah, I mean, we've been doing this for thousands of years, so it is it is uh I mean I mean, how many generations do you need to go back for your ancestors to be farmers?

SPEAKER_02 48:48

That's a good question. Probably only probably my great grandparent grandparents, I'm guessing. I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 48:55

For me, it's yes, yeah, it's my my grandparents.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

So it's really close.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

In the history of humanity, it's like less than a Do you ever struggle with motivation? No, no, I have the opposite problem. I I too much motivation. Yeah, yeah. That's my that's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

That's not a problem. Is it a problem?

SPEAKER_00 49:10

Yeah, because you're too excited about too many things.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

So how do you manage that? Because you have motivation exceeds your already incredible capacity, it seems.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Uh yeah. I I guess like teaching is a really good remedy for that because you you get the illusion that you are passing on this excitement to other people.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

You know, you do teach a lot, yeah. Yeah. And your TED talk's about teaching clients.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

Yeah, yeah. Um but I feel like I I do want to channel this uh teaching energy into like more like innovation and like hands-on entrepreneurship and developing technology or working with communities or just making stuff.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Um you want to teach less.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

I do. Why? Um because I'm 41 and I've already spent I've been teaching the day after I finished my master's degree. So like I've been teaching already for for a long time, for like 20, almost 20 years. Right. And so so I feel like I I I feel that some of my idea um could have like a really big climate impact. And I'm just like what impact? Climate. Climate impact. So I feel like I I need to hurry up and I probably will be teaching again in the context of promoting those technologies.

SPEAKER_01 50:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

And so I'm thinking like, okay, just focus on making those things happen. Um and that would be that would be the most useful or valuable things you can do with your time in the next uh two decades.

SPEAKER_02 50:38

So much urgency.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

Yeah. So how do you focus and how do you pick what to focus on?

SPEAKER_00 50:44

So I have great difficulties uh deciding what to focus on or how to manage my time. That's that's basically the topic of my PhD. Like how do you prioritize? Yeah, so here it is. So I'm writing basically like a whole framework on trying to understand like short-term. Okay, so you know there's a theory of change. So for those who don't know, it's basically like what are the resources you need, the activity that you do, the um outcome, the not sorry, the output, the outcome, and then the impact. And for each of those stages, they are like deeper in time. And so to measure the impact is very long term, uh, output is immediate. Um and so that's one time-based framework. And because I do a lot of things which are related to the development of new technology, I look at the impact, not just social and environmental impact, but also economic, but mostly cultural. When you develop intellectual property like technology or ideas, it's cultural. Most uh impact frameworks don't have the cultural component because they've made by, they are made by economists or ecologists or social scientists. So they're not into like technology or culture. Right. And so that's the first sort of dimension that I'm adding into my framework. And then what I'm finding right now is that if I'm honest with myself, a lot of the things is also about like my own capacity. If I could do anything, I probably wouldn't do what I'm doing right now. Uh but because I have this particular skill set that I've developed over time, there's a bit of like an icky guy, you know, this like uh do the things that you're good at. But I found this so I'm trying to basically find out like what is the best methodology that other people could use as well to decide what they want to do based on their circumstances and their motivation.

SPEAKER_02 52:29

That's part of your PhD.

SPEAKER_00 52:30

That's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:31

So part of your PhD is to figure out a methodology to make a choice. For people to make a choice on what to figure out their life purpose.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Uh not really. Well, the life purpose and also like what the planet needs.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Yeah. So for me, I use the example of like ocean innovation because that's been my my topic. But my hope is that this framework is usable by the general public and that the methodology is also scientific contribution. So there's like three different things. There's like an ocean technology part, which is like really technical, a part of it which is like general public, and a part which is specifically for like science of like epistemology and can you summarize that in a nutshell?

SPEAKER_02 53:12

Give us the TLDR of your PhD. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

The TLDR for me, I would say, is that the ocean is the main regulator for the climate, and most people like don't realize it. Uh there's like a great insufficient number of people who use their talents in this area. Um and the way that we develop technology and collaborate together tends to be um not a match for like addressing the challenges that are coming. And so I'm proposing a bunch of like ways to open source technology, like collaboration and like ground up innovation with like indigenous people and knowledge transfer, uh, working in communities that are frontline. So all those methodology elements I'm trying to sort of put in. Um the idea is that um to address climate change and support the hundreds of millions of refugees that we're gonna have because of climate change, we need to have a radically different ways of working together, basically. And so I don't pose it that my way of doing it is the right and only way, but I try to extract at least some value so that other people could use that methodology.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:34

Okay, last with the last 60 seconds. What are your top tips for staying organized? Top apps and top tips. Notion.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

Ask Marie Kondo.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

Throw everything out. Notion. You do love Notion, you've always loved Notion.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

Yeah, yeah. I'm an early adopter.

SPEAKER_02 54:51

Do you have like one notion for everything, or do you have a separate notion for all the things?

SPEAKER_00 54:55

Okay, because I'm imagining a lot of ADHD people who are struggling with organizing might already be using Notion, some project management or some like task management. Okay. There's one uh particular concept of architecture that I've developed that I've not seen anywhere. That I probably should do a YouTube video about it, um which is to have fewer databases down to basically two. I only have two databases. One is people and one is events. Okay, I know that sounds really, really crazy because I go because most people have notion they have like, oh, the more database you have and the more like organized you are, just like no bullshit. Because the more databases you have, and the harder it is to connect and make sense of the complexity of your life. If you think about what your life is, it's basically people and a lot of events.

SPEAKER_02 55:45

In time.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Events in time that happening. And so for me, a task is an event. A meeting that I'll be taking notes could be an event. Reading a science paper or reading a blog post is an event.

SPEAKER_02 55:58

Everything you do listed in that event?

SPEAKER_00 55:59

Everything is an event.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

Is your whole life scheduled out?

SPEAKER_00 56:02

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 56:02

What's under people?

SPEAKER_00 56:04

Um each people has events.

unknown 56:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 56:08

And so your life is organized by your relationships and your events. Like what is the lowest bar to be listed as a person?

SPEAKER_00 56:17

No, everybody's a person. Everybody's on a person. I have uh 15,000 person.

SPEAKER_02 56:22

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

Because they are the people that I know. Because the the events are the the the people. Uh sorry. Um and then it's very because then everything becomes so simple.

SPEAKER_01 56:34

I guess.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

Uh, because then you can easily connect. Link everything. Yeah. Yeah. It becomes super, super simple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:41

Well, on that note, we're out of time. This event is over.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

This event is over.

SPEAKER_02 56:47

But this people card database entry continues.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

Thank you so much for your time. Oh, thanks, Laura. This has been so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

No, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 56:56

And thanks for joining me here in Paris, France. I've never seen you in France before.

SPEAKER_00 57:00

No, it's the first time.

SPEAKER_02 57:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

I I I can I have uh one suggestion to finish. Um did anybody interview you in your own podcast?

SPEAKER_02 57:09

They'll ask me questions sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 57:11

But can I like go full on and like dissect your brain? No, no, not this time, but like of course another time.

SPEAKER_02 57:16

Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Please. That'd be fun. Bonus episode.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

That's gonna have the highest uh yeah, like a page view.

SPEAKER_02 57:25

All right. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 57:26

Thanks, Lorel. Oh my friends have dated edge days.