Intersticia’s Decade in Review

The emerging generation is one of hope, awakened and will reboot the way we live – regenerate society as you gain voice, implicitly awakened choices (Professor Lisa Miller).

Yesterday our UK Trustee Louise Sibley and I attended the World Premier of “Lost Histories“, a show based on the family history of Biripi and Gamillaroi musician Troy Russell, created for Musica Viva Australia’s In-Schools Program.  Troy, together with  Leila Hamilton and Susie Bishop entertained a small group of families from all walks of Australian life as they visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales to celebrate the opening of it’s new Library and Archive as part of the Gallery’s opening of its’ major new development.

This project came about due to Zoë Cobden-Jewitt, now one of our Intersticia Advisors, with whom we started working on our very first Australian project with the Bell Shakespeare Company when they created their Writers’ Fellowship in 2015.

As I sat and listened to Troy, Leila and Susie explore the memory-box holding these Lost History stories I began to think about the stories within Intersticia that we have all created over the past decade.  It was at the end of 2012 after Sam, Lock and I had been to the UK in the Summer with my Aunt Joan Doughton (whom our Doughton Scholarship is in memory of) that I first began seriously exploring the concept of creating a family Foundation through which to undertake our philanthropic activities, and the Intersticia Foundation Australia became a reality on 23rd July 2023.  Intersticia UK became a Registered Charity on 7th January 2019.

The idea of being able to support younger people as they journey through life began when I was a student at Goodenough College in 1985, but this was further stimulated by a conversation I had with John O’Neil, founder of The Good Life, in 2016.  The Good Life evolved from the Aspen Institute, which was created to enable business leaders to take time out to discuss philosophy, ethics and literature as a key part of their own leadership journey. In 2006 two Aspen teachers – John O’Neil (ex AT&T) and Pete Thigpen (ex Levi Strauss) realised that the lessons of Aspen needed to be brought to the tech-leaders and community of Silicon Valley, and so they created Good Life.

When I visited John in Sausalito in 2016 we talked about how important it was for elders with resources to enable and empower emerging stewards and he challenged me to create a Fellowship – a group of people of like mind that I could support in the work that they do to make the world a better place.  This is what has guided our thinking throughout the past decade and has informed the people we have chosen and the organisations we work with.

Here is an overview of our major activities in that time.

2013:

• Intersticia Foundation Australia became a reality with the founding Board of Samantha Campbell, Lachlan Campbell, Samantha Crock, James Willis and myself.
• We created our first Rowland Scholarship at Goodenough College, Dr Lionel Nizigama.
• We began working with Goodenough College through our Scholarship and Digital Literacy programmes.

2014

• We began working with the Web Science Trust and in partnership with them developed Brave Conversations in March 2017.
• We supported our second Rowland Scholar, Hamish Laing.

2015:

• We began working with Bell Shakespeare Company supporting the Writers Programme with Kate Mulvany as our First Writer and Creative Fellow.
  
• We supported our third Rowland Scholar, Ignacio de Solminihac.

2016:

• We created our first Doughton Scholarship with Berivan Esen as our first Doughton Fellow.
• We began working with Tris Lumley, Director of Innovation and Development with New Philanthropy Capital supporting Digital Transformation and holding workshops for senior managers and Boards in Charity organisations in the UK.
• We supported our fourth Rowland Scholar, Britta Gustavson.

2017:

• We created our first Leadership Scholarship with Negar Tayyar as the first recipient.
• We created Brave Conversations held at the Australian National University in Canberra.  From this has evolved into Future Worlds Challenge.
• We continued our partnership with Bell Shakespeare supporting Teresa Jakovich in their Education Programme.
• We supported our fifth Rowland Scholar, Osheen Arora.
• Bel Campbell worked as Intersticia’s Creative Director co-creating Brave Conversations and the development of Future Worlds Challenge and became our third Leadership Fellow.

2018:

• We held our first Intersticia Fellowship Retreat at Goodenough College which ten Fellows, both Australian and UK Boards, which was facilitated by Sam Crock and John Urbano.
• We began working with Founders and Coders and Gaza Sky Geeks to create the Founders Programme which supported eight FAC Graduates and fifteen GSG Graduates to work on Tech for Better projects. Our first Founder Fellows being Joe Friel.
  
• We supported our sixth Rowland Scholar, Timothy Wong.
• We welcomed Nick Byrne as our second Leadership Fellow.

2019:

• Intersticia UK became a reality with the founding Board of Samantha Campbell, Lady Alison Irvine, Tris Lumley and myself.
• Three graduates from the Founders Programme formed the Yalla Co-Operative as a Web Design and Development Agency working between London, Berlin and Gaza.
  
• We continued our partnership with Bell Shakespeare by supporting Jess Chambers as Voice Coach in Residence.
• We continued to support the Founders Programme with two additional Founder Fellows, Kristina Jaggard and Oliver Smith-Wellnitz.
• We began working with Newspeak House to support our first joint Fellow in resident at the House, Jo Kerr.
• We supported our seventh Rowland Scholar, Sergio Camacho Iannini.
• We supported our second Doughton Fellow, Amira Shahla.
• We welcomed Dan Sofer, Executive Director of Founders and Coders, and Louise Sibley as Intersticia Advisors.

2020:

• The Covid 19 Pandemic hit the world severely curtailing travel and all social activities.
• As part of our adaptation forced by the Covid19 Pandemic we created our Digital Gymnasia Series of workshops, initially run through Goodenough College aimed at their Alumni and Student communities, but run out more broadly in 2021.
• The Digital Gymnasia material was integrated in to the Founders and Coders Social Machine curriculum with the help of FAC Graduate Hannah Stewart.
  
• We held our second Intersticia Fellowship Retreat online with 17 (seventeen) Fellows and 4 (four) advisors (Sam Crock, Marianne Darre, John Urbano, Louise Sibley and Dan Sofer).
• We supported our eighth Rowland Scholar, Sean McDiarmid.
• We supported our third Doughton Scholar, Marco Valerio.
• Louise Sibley replaced Alison Irvine as a Trustee of Intersticia UK.
• We welcomed Marianne Darre and Philip Hayton as Intersticia Advisors.
• Jacquie Crock began working with Intersticia as our first Intern.
• Doughton Fellow Berivan Esen became a Trustee of Intersticia UK.

2021:

• For the first time we funded two concurrent Goodenough Scholars, Farahana Cajuste and Sergio Mutis.
• We continued our work with Yalla through creating the Yalla Apprenticeship Programme which supported two GSG Graduates to work full time with Yalla for six months.  One is now a full time employee of Yalla.
• We held our first hybrid Intersticia Fellowship Retreat with 8 (eight) UK Fellows and Advisors attending in person at Schumacher College, Devon, and 15 (fifteen) Fellows and Advisors attending via Zoom.
• We began working with Abeer Abu Ghaith, Founder of MENA Alliances.
• Leadership Fellow Nick Byrne joined the Intersticia Foundation Board.

2022:

• We supported Gaza’s first Rock Band Osprey V with some funding towards sound and recording equipment.
• We delivered our first Brave Conversations to the Solstrand Leadership Programme, Norway.
• We supported our second Newspeak Scholar, Ardavan Afshar.
• We began supporting the development of a First Nations’ Ensemble through the Musica Viva Australia “In Schools Programme” resulting in “Lost Histories”created by Troy Russell.
• We supported the development of a new theatrical performance “Darkness” with Five Eliza Street, Newtown, Sydney to be premiered in January 2023.
• We supported our eleventh Rowland Scholar, Yujui Li.
• Abeer Abu Ghaith became a Leadership Fellow.
• We welcomed Hannah Stewart as Founder Fellow.
• We welcomed Zöe Cobden-Jewitt as an Intersticia Advisor.

Reflecting on the last ten years it seems fitting that we close the decade by once again working with Zöe on a project in Australia whilst also exploring new initiatives globally as we have always done.

From the beginning our aspirations for Intersticia were always global.  Ten years on we have now achieved this working with a range of organisations and supporting a Fellowship of individuals from all walks of life who are all contributing to the crafting of the story of Intersticia.

I would like to thank each and every person who has been a part of this.

An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being (Bertrand Russell).