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I was lucky enough to work part time as their startup coach for their Innovation Fellowship. The Academy sends people like myself to support innovators and researchers to developing countries to help innovators to turn their ideas and innovations into impactful and sustainable ventures. I got to know an entrepreneur who tried to use 3d printing to produce low costs, prosthetic arms, that people can afford in his country. There was also another entrepreneur that took mobile and hygienic toilets, to remote villages that don't have proper toilets to use. The Royal Academy of Engineering are supporting developing countries in so many different ways. which is really inspiring to me.

My hopeful story is an incredible cafe called Fair shot in London. A social enterprise that supports and transforms the lives of young adults with learning disabilities and autism through training them to be baristas and work in coffee shops. 95% of adults with learning disabilities are unemployed so through their hospitality program they take on a cohort of interns every year and train them up and then support them in finding work in other cafes. The support continues with Fair Shot providing a grant to the cafe where their intern is employed to contribute towards access needs and training for the first year. It's such a great thing to get my coffee from there every morning!

AR Projects provide warm meals and essential supplies to hundreds of people every week through their three soup kitchens, which act as portable hubs. These hubs are supporting those in need in various ways, including food, clothing, hygiene, mental health, and more.

My 70 year old adopted grandmother who is just forming a helping hand organisation for people who are in her age group that have experienced loss, and that are trying to start over and find their sense of purpose in life.

A collective called Possible Futures, a collective of women from across the global south. They are organised in a way to stand in solidarity with indigenous communities, land defenders, peasants and also smallholder farmers. I'm just completely in awe of what they do.

Gus and Jenny who are part of the Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team. Their level of compassion is what I aspire towards. Using their skills in crisis intervention they offer supportive listening, to start a dialogue and to encourage more hopeful solutions than suicide.

I get so much hope and inspiration from three women who are super passionate about social entrepreneurship. All of them have their families, their children, and they're juggling all of that and showing me that it's possible to do it and to be a successful woman in business and to have a strong social mission and to take care of your family.

Yeukai Taruvinga is my story of hope. She is originally from Zimbabwe and moved to the UK when she was 18 years old. She was involved in some political protests in Zimbabwe and her life was in danger. She thought she was coming here for a couple of months, until things calm down and she's still here 30 years later. Her asylum claim was very difficult, stressful and long, but she used that time to volunteer for boards of different charities in London working with young people from very diverse backgrounds. She decided that this was her life's calling. As soon as she got her refugee status, she set up a social enterprise called Active Horizons and she works now with young refugees, young asylum seekers and young people.

My person is Alan Watson Featherstone who in 1986 founded the award-winning conservation charity, Trees for Life, which works to restore the Caledonian Forest in the Scottish Highlands. In the 80s rewilding and mother trees wasn't necessarily something that was being talked about, but Alan decided that the Glens of Scotland needed to be rewild so he raised over a million pounds which for a 'normal man' is extraordinary. He showed us this huge part of the Glens that is now rewild and it was all to do with making fences, planting the right trees, keeping the deer out which happens now in loads of areas but it was quite radical at the time. He lives a simple life in Findhorn, they're absolutely back to nature who love their vegetables and hug their trees, but his insight and his love and his passion for something that he started from absolutely nothing I think is a huge story of hope .

An Iranian entrepreneur is my hopeful story. He is building schools across Germany in which children can grow up with a knowledge that is centred around what the world actually should be like and a curriculum that teaches them how to interact with human beings and with nature.

I was really impacted by something I watched online recently where Youtuber Mr Beast partnered with multi agencies on the ground to build 100 life changing wells for schools and communities across Africa. This was one of his philanthropic projects which I found really hopeful.

My hopeful story is a refugee called Edward from South Sudan who is living in Uganda. He is an extraordinary guy supporting so many people who are in need. What he's done is a reflection of a far wider number of people with around 1.4 million refugees living in Uganda.where in the context of such challenge there are extraordinary stories of courage, hope and resilience.

My hopeful story is a community that is processing its history and coming to be a force for indigenous land use and protection and conservation in Canada. They have rightly recognised that their relationship with the forest is their key to adaptation and survival in the future and they're blazing a trail showing the rest of us how it's done. They are showing that despair is often the first step towards repair and that processing the past is often the key to unlocking a more transformative and positive future.

For me hope is found in the ordinary moments of life and the acts of kindness that will never be a headline or even noticed. I was blown away by the overwhelming compassion of a bus driver in downtown San Francisco who treated a blind women with such joy and love and kindness when she got onto the bus. This impacted me to the point where I thanked the driver for going the extra mile. 'My sister also has a disability, so of course I want to help when I can.'

I recently came across The slow ways project which I found inspiring and hopeful. They are encouraging people to use existing paths that criss cross the landscape and move at the speed of natural human movement.

My story of hopefulness is all about the 80 people who have been part of the Bio Leadership Fellowship, all carrying a story that is changing the world in so many beautiful and creative ways. It's a call for people all around the world to come and be part of a community with each person holding a question or a project of potential change. It's through that that I've got to meet already 80 people and more, each of whom is carrying a story where they genuinely are doing something for the good of this life in so many beautiful and creative ways. Nobody can do this alone. It doesn't matter if you are the Secretary General of the UN or an organic farmer in India, you can't do it alone. But what is happening is that there are now threads of connection across communities that are really committed to making change happen. There's so much work to but the fact that the dots are getting connected is what gives me buckets of hope.