People Fixing The World

Discover the people and the projects trying to make the world a better place.

World Service,461 episodes

Episodes

ListGrid

The secret to making your stuff last longer
Clever ways to persuade people to fix old things instead of throwing them away
02 Mar 2021,23 mins
Tackling sport’s concussion problem
How the latest technology is helping to tackle head injuries in sport
23 Feb 2021,23 mins
Beating superbugs
The small team of Indian scientists who think they’ve found a new way to kill superbugs
16 Feb 2021,23 mins
How to store power in soil and salt
Batteries made of building blocks and volcanic rock
09 Feb 2021,23 mins
The spacesuits saving mothers’ lives
Suits originally designed for astronauts are helping midwives save lives
26 Jan 2021,23 mins
A forest down your street
The tiny urban forests bringing nature to the heart of the city
19 Jan 2021,23 mins
The solutions whisperer
Dhruv Boruah’s mission is to inspire other people to solve problems facing the planet
12 Jan 2021,23 mins
Can doughnuts save the planet?
Doughnut economics in action - how we can live well and save the planet at the same time
05 Jan 2021,23 mins
What happened next to our problem solvers
Hydrating sweets for the elderly go on sale and how a housing experiment coped with Covid
29 Dec 2020,23 mins
Saving mums and their unborn babies
Women in Nigeria have come up with an emergency transport scheme that is saving lives
22 Dec 2020,23 mins
Making meat in a lab
How meat grown in labs could reduce our environmental impact
15 Dec 2020,23 mins
Building with fungi
Growing packaging, coffins and whole houses out of eco-friendly mycelium
08 Dec 2020,23 mins
Perovskites: The future of solar?
A new kind of solar cell is made by drying a special liquid on a surface
01 Dec 2020,23 mins
Riding the solar railway
How to make train journeys greener using the power of the sun
24 Nov 2020,23 mins
From prison to star employee
Why former criminals are being chosen for jobs at hundreds of companies in a small US city
17 Nov 2020,23 mins
Audience takeover: Your questions answered
Answers to your questions about regrowing the rainforest and other stories we’ve covered
10 Nov 2020,23 mins
Teenage inventor special
Brilliant ideas from school kids to help solve crime, make life safer and much more
03 Nov 2020,23 mins
Saving Cape Cod’s dolphins
Saving dolphins from stranding on beaches - we meet the team improving survival rates
27 Oct 2020,23 mins
How to put the internet in a box
Inside the “sneakernet” - the people carrying websites to places that are off the grid
20 Oct 2020,23 mins
How jellyfish can help us
Jellyfish could be used to filter microplastics from water and develop new medicines
13 Oct 2020,23 mins
Training police to patrol each other
US police are being taught what to do if they're worried about a colleague’s actions
06 Oct 2020,23 mins
Getting rid of AI bias
Better facial recognition and changing algorithms - how to fight racial bias in AI
29 Sep 2020,23 mins
How to prevent drowning
AI to help lifeguards in Israel and weather forecasts for fishermen on Lake Victoria
22 Sep 2020,23 mins
Smartphones saving the rainforest
Old mobile phones are being used to catch illegal loggers in the rainforest
15 Sep 2020,23 mins
A happier planet
Looking for the happiest places in the world and finding out what makes them happy
08 Sep 2020,23 mins
Keeping data forever
Three radical new ways to save data – in DNA, glass and magnets
01 Sep 2020,23 mins
The tech doctors forecasting heart failure
Implanted devices can predict when something is about to go wrong with a patient’s heart
11 Aug 2020,23 mins
Prison Voicemail: Messages from behind bars
Prisoners and their families are keeping in touch with the Prison Voicemail app
04 Aug 2020,23 mins
Financing the forests
Making rainforests a profitable investment
28 Jul 2020,23 mins
New uses for old solutions
How two life-saving apps were adapted to fix problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic
14 Jul 2020,23 mins