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Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, a global volunteer collaboration called Pivot Projects was formed to rethink how the world works. In
The Pivot, the journalist Steve Hamm, who embedded in the group from the start, tells the remarkable story of a collaborative experiment seeking to make societies more sustainable and resilient.
List of contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Mission
Poem: An Imagined Letter from COVID-19 to Humans
2. The Core Team
Profile: Shulamit Morris-Evans, British Extinction Rebellion activist
3. The Scrum
Profile: Waël Alafandi, Syrian refugee studying in France
4. Struggles
Profile: Anh Nguyen, Vietnamese fish exporter studying in Sweden
5. Remapping the World
Profile: Tom Rossiter, American architect and photographer
6. The Theory of Everything
Profile: Anna Panagiotou, Greek archaeologist
7. Rethinking Resilience
Profile: Sharmin Sarah Mim, Bangladeshi teacher-trainer
8. Talking to Robots
Profile: Shay Hershkovitz, Israeli political scientist and start-up executive
9. Points of Light
Profile: Gamelilhe Sibanda, Zimbabwean technical adviser to the United Nations
10. Places
Profile: Paola Bay, Italian artist and designer
11. Bright Ideas
Profile: Ian Mabbett, Welsh university professor and inventor
12. Connecting
Notes
About the author
Steve Hamm is an author, journalist, and filmmaker. He has worked for a number of newspapers and magazines, including BusinessWeek and the San Jose Mercury News, and has made documentary films about immigration, policing, and opioids. He is coauthor of Smart Machines: IBM’s Watson and the Era of Cognitive Computing (Columbia, 2013) and Rise of the Data Cloud (2020), among other books.
Summary
When the world reemerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems likely that it will have transformed irrevocably. Can societies already reeling from climate change, income inequality, and structural racism change for the better? Does the shock of the pandemic offer an opportunity to pivot to a more sustainable way of life?
Early in the crisis, a global volunteer collaboration called Pivot Projects was formed to rethink how the world works. Some members are experts in the sciences and the humanities; others are environmental activists or regular people who see themselves as world citizens. In The Pivot, the journalist Steve Hamm—who embedded in the enterprise from the start—explores their efforts and shows how their approach provides a model for achieving systemic change. Chronicling the group’s progress along an uncharted path, he shows how people with a variety of skills and personalities collaborate to get things done.
Through their work, Hamm examines some of today’s most important technologies and concepts, such as systems thinking and modeling, complexity theory, artificial intelligence, and new thinking about resilience. The book features vivid, informal profiles of a number of the group’s members and brings to life the excitement and energy of dynamic, smart people trying to change the world.
Part journal of a plague year and part call to action, The Pivot tells the remarkable story of a collaborative experiment seeking to make the world more sustainable and resilient.
Additional text
The Pivot is a readable and engaging narrative account of an audacious attempt to stimulate change at a global level.
