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Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable and Boaz Paldi (Chief Creative Office UNDP) live at Cannes Lions Festival on Climate | SAWA – UNDP “Don’t Choose Extinction” Campaign 

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Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable and Boaz Paldi (Chief Creative Office UNDP) live at Cannes Lions Festival on Climate | SAWA – UNDP “Don’t Choose Extinction” Campaign 

Public-Private Partners convene at Cannes for launch of SDG Lounge at International Creative Festival hosted by SAWA, UNDP, PVBLIC and ESG News

Highlights 

  • UNDP “Don’t Choose Excitation” climate campaign debuts live at Cannes Lions festival  
  • UNDP-SAWA partnership drives climate short film to 30 countries 16 languages. 
  • “Don’t Choose extinction” reaches a record audience of 1.8 billion views worldwide.

Brought to Cannes by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), PVBLIC Foundation, SAWA and EarthX, Frankie the Dino stars in the UN agency’s film on climate action called “Don’t Choose Extinction.”

This first-ever film made inside the UN General Assembly using computer-generated imagery (CGI) reached a global audience of 1.8 billion. Thanks to UNDP’s partnership with SAWA Cinema Advertising Association and the Global Cinema Medium, the short film is currently screening as an ad for eight weeks in movie theaters across 30 countries in 16 languages.

Off-screen, Frankie the Dino became the week’s main attraction at the Cannes Lions international creative festival.

MORE COVERAGE

  • Watch complete coverage of the SDG Lounge at Cannes Lions 2022

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS: 

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable and Boaz Paldi (Chief Creative Office UNDP)

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (00:00):

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us. We’re here at the SDG Media Lounge with our partners. I’m from the United Nations Development Program and the Chief Creative Officer. Um, uh, and we are here with, uh, with the SDG media lounge with our partners, uh, SAqA the global media advertisement association and, uh, the PVBLIC Foundation. Uh, we joined today by Robert Galluzzo, who is the CEO and founder executive producer of, of Finch Australia. Welcome Rob.

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (00:26):

Thank you.

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (00:27):

Um, Rob, you’ve created a, uh, a project, um, a, a product, uh, that’s called Creatable. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (00:39):

Yeah, it’s uh, the top line is, uh, essentially it is a program around professional learning for teachers that is designed to solve the lag between industry and education. Um, we can delve into that a little bit around why that’s so important, but we do believe that that’s maybe the solution to quite a few problems.

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (01:00):

I, I know the original story from you, cuz you’ve told it to me before. Can you, can you just tell us a little bit of the original story?

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (01:06):

Uh, look, it it’s been on a, a real journey. So, uh, we, we, I have three daughters. My eldest wanted to do design tech at an all girls school. Only six girls wanted to do design tech, so they were gonna cancel it. And I said, uh, hang on, let’s see if we can fix this. And so, um, we, you know, we’re a field production company, but we gave ourselves permission to get involved in the education sector. Uh, we have a tech business called Nakatomi , uh, so filled with engineers, um, kind of creative engineers, I guess you would say. And so we ended up, um, designing a curriculum for high school girls to ignite their passion for stem. Um, since then it has evolved quite, um, dramatically, uh, as we’ve understood how and best to pivot for real impact and scale,

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (01:54):

But, and you’ve had an incredible success in Burundi. Yes. Um, with, with together with UNICEF, I believe. Um, can you tell us a little bit about, about the success in Burundi and, and I think we have a, a, a, a filmed show.

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (02:06):

Yeah, we do. So, um, I just say from that origin story, um, and that journey that we went through, giving ourselves that permission to learn and understand we worked out the, we were able to drill down, I think one simple word that would, um, impact, um, education, um, where if the plan was equity of access for everybody, um, which would help with diverse, um, diversity and, um, access, um, it was context. So we kind of worked out, oh, wow. The main reason young girls in school didn’t want to do stem was context. They just said, well, why would I want to do that? And so we started finding ways to, um, engage them and ignite their, you know, through insight and things that were important to them. And then stem became a tool. So we use the same mentality in Burundi. So, um, we worked in UNICEF, had heard about the, what we were doing in Australia and had said, look, if it works here, do you think it could work in Burundi, which is one of the poorest nations on the planet? We said, yep. Give it a try. And so they gave us access to about 4,000 students via quite simple mobile phones. We were able to talk to them back and forth around, uh, through the department of education, but around what were the problems that they wanted to solve. And, uh, top two on the list. Um, the first one we thought would be right, which was fresh drinking water. Um, but the second one was a surprise to us, which was, um, air purity and smoke, um, inhalation through ineffective cooking.

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (03:46):

We, we learned that, uh, over 4 million people in Africa die from smoke inhalation through ineffective cooking, which is more than malaria tuberculosis put together. Um, and they voted that as number one thing that they wanted us to solve. So there’s your context. Um,

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (04:05):

So, so should we, should we show the film?

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (04:08):

Well, I should explain maybe top line of what we did, that’ll explain the film. And so we, as I said, we have an engineering, we have a company called Nakatomi and they designed based on that brief, um, we designed a lesson plan, um, for the teachers to teach the students and it’s the basics of thermodynamics. So, um, there was the information for them to, um, learn and grow. And then our lesson plan was a redesign of a rocket stove using, um, what they had on the ground there in Burundi. And so a rocket stove operates with one fifth, the fuel, um, and is pretty much smokeless

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (04:51):

Cue video

Video Playing (05:00):

From the outside. The schooling system for the longest time has looked the same as it always has students group together in classrooms while teachers strive to pass on their knowledge needed to survive in the real world. But from the inside, the schooling system has been involved in a constant cycle of reformation, as it aims to keep up with the ever-changing needs of society. As we’ve seen throughout history, this type of reformation occurs every few years, usually at the highest of major socioeconomic shifts, the change in societal needs kickstarts changes to industry which alters the types of skills needed for employment. Ultimately influencing what schools teach students in the classroom in the past education systems have attempted to align themselves more closely to industry. Indeed, in order to shorten the lag between the two at the turn of the 20th century, societal concerns that schools were ill preparing their students for the industrialized world, persuaded educational leaders to restructure their schools. They turned into examples from successful businesses to reorient their teaching to 20th century skills. But while this cycle of evolution is a new, the current rate in which it’s turning is as the industry landscape pushes further into the digital age, 87% of business,

Video Playing (06:46):

Yeah. How do we teach today? So the students will have what they need tomorrow.

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (06:54):

It might move into creative now. Ah, no wrong video. That’s fine. That’s the two minute. Yeah.

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (07:02):

Um, so, um,

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (07:08):

Because I wanna reference the film, so I’ll just talk to,

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (07:10):

Yeah. So, um, so Rob, this seems like an incredible innovation. What, what, uh, what, what what’s behind it?

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (07:20):

Well, look, um, it is really about, um, empowerment, I guess. And you know, one of the interesting things that we’ve found is, um, en engaging with, um, the students from Burundi and the teachers. Um, we’ve seen that they wanted to evolve the program as well. And so we’ve started, um, connecting schools in Sydney to schools in Burundi. And, um, it’s quite interesting seeing the different problems in the different context, but, um, that level of empowerment for a young student in a Bruny to understand a problem from a student in, in Australia, um, and actively feel empowered to help them solve it, um, is kind of exciting. You’ll see, from that video, um, the fundamental change, uh, or the impact that it has had, um, the young girl who talks about, um, uh, finally feeling, uh, feeling more safe because she doesn’t need to go and collect, um, fuel.

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (08:27):

Uh, she was collecting fuel as you saw every three days. And now it’s every two weeks, um, to have a, a young girl younger than her teams younger than her, you know, before preteen to be, um, even knowing the word rape and speaking to that and, um, um, feeling safer because of it, um, I guess is really, really quite dramatic, but they’re surprising aspect for us was, um, it ignited something more in the students. So the students, uh, have set up after school groups. Um, some of the girls have gotten together and they actually build rocket stoves. So rather than their job being to go and collect, uh, wood, they’ve started building rocket stoves for other communities and charging for it. And so it’s unearthed, um, this level of enterprise that we didn’t think was gonna happen, it’s unearthed, um, a level of safety that we didn’t think that was gonna happen. And as you’ll see from the film, you know, the teachers, um, are really quite vocal about how it has created a real awakening in the students. And so one of the challenges is that’s one small area in Burundi, um, but UNICEF, uh, committed to with its success, rolling that out across, uh, refugee camps, um, and tr trialing it in refugee camps, enrolling it out through country offices, which is, um, really, uh, exciting.

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (10:00):

I’m sorry about my phone. It was slightly ringing there. Uh <laugh> um, so, so, so really that’s the question I wanted to ask you. What’s next? How do you grow this? What, what’s your plans?

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (10:10):

Yep. So, uh, we’ve stayed so strangely, uh, we’ve become part of the department of education in Burundi. So we have an office there now, um, and we are working there with the educators to, um, sorry with the government to solve more and more problems. So the team have already, um, started with the second phase, which is vertical garden, uh, vertical farming, um, and, um, really interesting ways for mechanical, um, water purification. And so they’re rolling out. So it is an ongoing, um, program. And I think, um, you know, these things need to be test and learnt. You know, it’s not one of these, you know, you can’t make something like that. Hope it works, tell everyone it works and then leave it is what worked, what didn’t, how do we evolve it? How do we grow it? And the proof’s in the pudding, you know, if we’re back here next year and there’s thousands and thousands of more students, um, involved, and we’ve got a range of more, um, um, lesson plans in innovation, um, that’ll show a good indicator, but if we’re back here in five, five years and we’ve really unearthed more scale, but much more importantly changed lives where maybe we’ve changed the trajectory of, um, some lives in, um, some of the children in Burundi, um, which would be that generational solve that we’re looking for.

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (11:39):

Um, that’s when we’ll know we’ve got success, so we’re committed to, we are definitely resilient and we know how to pivot and we’re committed. So, um, yeah, we’ll know next year will be a good indicator. I’d like to come back and see whether it worked. And in about five years, we’ll really know if it had impact. And I think, um, sometimes resilience, patience, and the ability to pivot are undervalued. Everyone wants answers now.

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (12:08):

And, and, and outside of Burundi, are you planning to expand it? Do, do you see this BDI as a pilot? And then you can take it elsewhere around

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (12:14):

The world? It’s in fact the opposite. So Burundi was, uh, so yes, it is rolling out, Creatable as a program, uh, as I said, is solving the lag between industry education. So we have signed Facebook, we’ve signed Atlassian, we’ve signed Vodafone, Mars signed as well, Mars incorporated. Um, and we’re talking to a bunch of other brands and we’ve basically set up, we are redesigning education from the ground up about what is important and they’re, we’ve set our own themes about what’s important. We’re going into those brands and interviewing best in class about who they are gonna be looking for in the future. Um,

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (12:56):

The, what they’re looking for, what the future jobs look like they’re gonna be, and we are testing them on what they think, um, the way they’re addressing, um, truth in the new world, the way they’re interest, addressing, solving for a better planet, contextual cop out and other convenient excuses. So we’ve set the tone. We’re going into brands. We’re bringing out the best of those companies and bringing it into school. And so the bigger impact across the planet. So that was the brand BDI version, but the bigger impact across the planet is giving the youth via teachers the chance to maybe see themselves in the future. So much of it’s about hope, but more, so much is about context. And we believe that if we can really open up that equity of access to everybody, um, that we solve a bunch of problems around not just diversity, um, we’re keen to see the other byproducts. Maybe there’s a mental health solve, as well as the youth start to understand maybe their place in the world and see a future.

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (13:58):

Last question, you, um, you obviously kind of have used your, your, your position in Finch and Finch itself inata and, and all of, all of your, these incredible products that you’re producing, um, what motivates you and what can you do? What can you say to inspire others to take that step and really look at the world in a way of solving problems, not just the bottom line, cause I know that that’s what you do. Yeah,

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (14:20):

I would say, um,

Rob Gulluzo, CEO Finch/Createable (14:25):

In the simplest way, I believe that the world would be better if everyone oper, if everyone operated, um, with compassion and imagination, I think of all the things that’s missing in business is missing pretty much everywhere is imagination and compassion together. And that is a, it’s quite a heady, um, mixture. And when you get that right, um, all we need to do next is prove that it financially works. And I think we’re gonna probably do that. Withable um, but if everyone off operated more with imagination and compassion, I think we’ve probably all gonna be okay.

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer,UNDP (15:06):

That’s good now to end on, thank you very much for joining us here at the SDG media lounge. Um, let’s see you next time in the year. Thanks.

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