Greetings Glocal Citizens!

This week on the podcast we’re getting to know Robert “Rob” North, a U.S. Marine Veteran, All–American, lovable off-the-wall, skilled carpenter that has truly carved out a niche for himself. Born and raised on Chicago's South Side, Rob inviites us through getting to know his story of becoming a Marine, to a TV personality, and an all-around global builder.
Taking the world of DIY by storm and making home improvement affordable and accessible to all, in his projects Rob breaks down home repairs and improvement, inspiring his audience to follow his motto, “If you can’t find a way, make a way!” Teaching his audience how to make that way, Rob has built a large television and online following as a finish carpenter on HGTV’s Designed to Sell, as a Co-host on Frank Fontana’s Down and Dirty, Co-host on Reality Series Skrew’d, as well as spokesman and DIY Guru for Craftsman.

He is currently featured as one of the main hosts of the popular BYU TV humaniitarian travel show, The Fixers – think Habitat for Humanity meets IShowSpeed. In each episode he goes around the world helping non-profit organizations improve their work to help others. From the Kingston’s Inner City Streets to a remote riverside village in Ghana, Rob and The Fixers are making the world a better place one project at a time.

Listen, learn and discover how Rob’s diverse experiences and investments shape his approach to life, work, and making a difference worldwide.

Where to find Rob?
@ Ron North on TV
On The Fixers
Seed & Stone Builders
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook

What’s Rob listening to?
Theater for the Mind Podcast

Other topics of interest:
Native American an and Irish interactions in American History
GI Joe the cartoon series
BCII Productions
About Hempcrete
Check out Mrs. North aka Cissa Paz Music and @Aurora Planning
About the Mackinac Sailing Event
Fun Facts about Lake Michigan
What exactly is a Square Wave?
Black Americans and Bow Hunting Traditions

With the tragic landslide and flooding in Nepal, it’s heartbreaking to think about how already limited resources are impacting those with longstanding needs for assistance. As Rob mentioned in the conversation, he is about a third of the way to raising the funds to support his apprentice with the lifesaving procedure for his niece. Check out Rob’s appeal and the GoFundMe he started to help this family in need.

Special Guest: Rob North.

Greetings Glocal Citizens!

Back in 2013, a spark of inspiration gave light to an initiative that I went on to recruit a handful of friends to join in on the Flirt with the World’s Million Condom Giveaway at locations across Accra on World AIDS Day 2013. As part of our local press tour, I visited a local radio station, 107.9 YFM where I met htis week’s guest Amma Boakye-Danquah--shout out to her co-host, fellow Glocal Citizen,Emmanuel Gamor.

Amma, like me was a fres arrival in Ghana and over the years has expanded her professional portfolio in all manner of dimensions. As a strategic advisor and innovation leader with over 16 years of experience shaping education systems, youth leadership, and adaptive learning across West Africa, she has led multimillion-dollar initiatives at USAID , including the $22M Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) Regional Leadership Center and the development of the West Africa Learning and Knowledge (WALK) Agenda, helping institutions turn data into action and policy into practice. Known for building unlikely partnerships across government, philanthropy, media, and the private sector, Her work sits at the intersection of systems change, evidence-based strategy, and inclusive leadership. Her career spans collaborations with organizations such as the Mastercard Foundation, Microsoft , and regional bodies including ECOWAS. She currently serves as the Associate Director of Imperial Global Ghana , where she bridges world-class research and practical market applications by fostering strategic partnerships among researchers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers across the public, private, and third sectors. Rooted in a global perspective on urban policy, education, and development, qnd with foundational experience teaching middle school mathematics in under-resourced schools in Louisiana through Teach For America, beyond her academic and policy work, she is a passionate cultural convener bringing art, history, and community together.

Where to find Amma?

@ Imperial Global Ghana
On LinkedIn
On Substack

What’s Amma listening to?
The Our Ancestors Were Messy Podcast

What’s Amma reading?
Small Worlds

Other topics of interest:
Oyibi, Ghana
Labari Data
Homeschool Collective
On Indigeneering
Commonwealth Fellowship Programme
About Ghana’s National Science and Math Quiz
Post Hurricane Katrina School Takeovers in New Orleans

Special Guest: Amma Boakye-Danquah.

Greetings Glocal Citizens!

This week on the podcast we’re visiting points east, west, north and south with my guest who began his professional career as a graffiti artist on the streets of Houston, Texas in the late 1990s at the age of 16. By the 2000s, he had evolved into an acclaimed Primitive Abstract and Primitivism painter, a body of work he calls Living Dreams.

As you’ll here in the conversation, he does not sit down and plan his paintings. He dreams them. The images, the phrases, the poetry you see on his canvases come to him in a dream state, and he wakes up and puts them down exactly as he received them. The patterns behind them are sound itself, translated into color and shape. Look closely and you will find Mayan glyphs, Native American symbols, Egyptian and Sumerian script, alongside a language he invented entirely on his own.

His work has traveled as he has. From Houston to London, from Osaka to Miami, from Brooklyn to Bogotá and Cartagena, from Santo Domingo and points beyond. Wherever he lands, the questions in his art stay the same. Wealth against poverty. Integration against segregation. Power, and who gets to hold it.

He does not just make the work for commercial purposes, he gives it away. A significant share of every piece he sells goes straight back to the people he paints alongside, the ones working hard for very little, the ones the world calls poor.

He is, in his own words, the Dreamer and the Dream.

Where to find Wambo?
mwamba-salim-wilson.com

On Instagram
In Books

Other topics of interest:
[U.S. Armed Forces Sports]((https://armedforcessports.defense.gov)
On Abstract Expressionism and Neo Expressionist Artists
Living in Thailand
Visiting Sweden
Fun times @Six Flags
On the Columbian Art Scene

In case you’re curious about the studio tour, check out the video episode on YouTube.

Special Guest: Mwamba-Salim "Wambo" Wilson.

Greetings Glocal Citizens!

Hello from Londontown, where I find myself officially starting my summer antics for the 2026 season. And where I’ve found inspiration for this week's compilation episode. From an early episode with crime writer, Leye Adenle, to last year’s conversation with activist and social entrepreneur, Lavinya Stennett, we’ll hear a range of Pan-African perspectives on how London is local for these guests--all of which happen to also be writers.

Serial entrepreneur, investor and author of We Don’t Need Permission: How Black Business Can Change Our World, Eric Collins shares perspectives as an immigrant from the US to the UK. Lawyer, international development consultant, journalist, politician and author of Love Does Not Win Elections, Ayisha Osori helps us to understand home as presence. Award-winning author of Easy Motion Tourist, with a forthcoming new series due to launch this year with Fall From Grace, Leye Adenle shares about his London before experiencing it as a writer. As a lux-preneur herself, award-winning luxury business consultant, Elizabeth Solaru, author of best-selling book, Opulencia and LUXpreneur: How to start and build a successful luxury brand, is taking us along in her experiences transitioning from a career in the sciences to business. Architect, artist, and multi-faceted creative, Robertson Ahomka-Lindsay shares how his talents from design to music helped to give his London life an artisic flair. And finally, founder of The Black Curriculum, fimmaker and author of Omitted: The Untold Black History Lessons We Need to Change the Future, Lavinya Stennett helps us to understand effective organizing techniques for impact.

If you haven’t already settled in, mind the gap and take a seat on this Tube ride through London.

Where to find full conversations and show notes from episodes with this week’s guests?
Eric Collins
Ayisha Osori
Leye Adenle
Elizabeth Solaru
Robertson Ahomka-Lindsay
Lavinya Stennett

Soundscape:
Sounds Like a Train on YouTube

Special Guests: Ayisha Osori, Elizabeth Solaru, Eric Collins, Lavinya Stennett, Leye Adenle, and Robertson Ahomka-Lindsay.

Greetings Glocal Citizens!

This past spring, a volunteer from the Digital Democracy Project reached out to me about its founder and this week’s guest, Ramon Perez. I’d never heard of the project and as a podcast about the many dimensions of citizenship, this was a very necessary conversation exploring innovative ways to enhance citizen participation and reform democracy using technology like AI, blockchain, and mobile voting. As an AI technology executive and US military veteran, Ramon founded the Digital Democracy Project as an accountability system and mobile voting platform that connects voters directly with their legislative representatives to address systemic problems in the electoral system that result in hyper-partisanship and widespread voter alienation. To achieve better outcomes, he believes technology can be used as a catalyst for building a more modern, representative system of government giving greater control directly to voters. #Listenandlearn more as we discuss systemic challenges in US politics and how technology can create a more transparent, accountable, and inclusive democratic process.

Where to find Ramon and the Digital Democracy Project?
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On Bluesky
On YouTube

What’s Ramon Listening to?
The Lord of the Rings Series Audiobooks
Empire Podcast

Other topics of interest:
On the Enduring Legacy of 9/11
About OneVirginia21
What is Gerrymandering?
About ranked-choice voting
What is Hyperledger Fabric?
Homomorphic encryption explained

Chapters
00:06 Intro and Guest Bio
01:54 Ramon Perez's Background and Motivation
03:14 Defining Democracy in the 21st Century
03:22 Limitations of Current Electoral Systems
05:30 Civic Responsibility and Voter Engagement
07:16 Educating Voters with Technology
09:50 AI's Role in Legislative Summaries
13:57 Systemic Problems in US Elections
16:16 Verifiability, Accountability, and Transparency
17:54 Ramon Perez's Career Path and Transition to AI
20:06 Public Perception of AI and Ethical Use
21:14 Tools and Innovations in Digital Voting
26:07 Global Examples of Democratic Success
35:34 Glocal Speak: Transparency as a Key Value
37:19 Organizing and Operating a Nonprofit Project
42:51 Historical Progress of Voting Rights
44:34 Future Goals and Expansion of the Project
46:44 Ramon Perez's Leisure and Personal Interests
47:42 Reflections on the Evolution of AI and Democracy

Special Guest: Ramon Perez.

Greetings Glocal Citizens!

This week, as the summer heat inches up across the northern hemishphere, we’re hosting our youngest guest yet on the podcast. Augusta Barlow is a 14-year old change agent. Born and raised in Maryland in the United States, with family roots in Cape Verde, she believes in assistance through advocacy and service through sharing. She recently completed her freshman year at Northwestern High School, a public comprehensive and magnet school in Hyattsville, Maryland known for its rigorous Center for the Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA) program. This year, in addition to starting high school she took on another new challenge as one of 12 participants globally in The Kuda Vana Partnership International’s, Youth Advocacy Voice Amplifiers-YAVA group which kicked off it’s inaugural cohort in October of 2025. YAVA is KVPI's youth program, where students learn to advocate for the mission and amplify it responsibly online. This cohort is running a capstone project driven by a set of interviews plus a coordinated push to grow the organization's reach the right way. In a why the where teaser, when her mother, friend to the podcast and colleague of our guest in Episode 93, Sef Ashiagbor, suggested she join YAVA so she could use her new Instagram account to help people, she agreed wholeheartedly. When not in school or doing work for YAVA, Augusta enjoys theater, movies, cooking and baking.

Where to find YAVA?
@ KVPI
On Instagram
On TikTok
On YouTube
On GoFundMe

What’s Augusta reading?
None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

…watching?
The Knives Out Trilogy

…listening to?
Lyn Lapid Music

Other topics of interest:
What is KVPI? Kuda Vana Partnership International is a US nonprofit supporting family-based care for vulnerable children in Zimbabwe, working to strengthen families and communities so fewer children become vulnerable in the first place. Full picture and the Theory of Change: kudavana.org.
Take a culinary tour of Cape Verdean Cuisine

As you'll hear in the beginning of the episode, with the recent devastating floods that happened across Accra on June 28th-29th, conversations like this with young people challenging themselves to action and understanding around issues outside of themselves and their comfort zones, give us hope that the future is in good hands. For information on how you can assist those in need here in Accra visit the following:

Joy FM
Direct Aid

Special Guest: Augusta Barlow.

Greetings Glocal Citizens!

This week on the podcast, we re-presenting an episode that first posted nearly five years ago in the summer of 2021. At the time, my guest, Elizabeth Ann [Campbell Parks] Rollins-Moskowitz, Liz Campbell for short, was empty nesting and remote grandmothering while diving ever deeper into her art using her Mill Valley, California setting as a constant muse. Today she’s hands on grandmothering, establishing herself in the Nairobi art scene and making new friend across generations. At 87, Grandma Liz continues to be an examplar of what Glocal Citizenship is all about. She relocated to Nairobi--her new muse, to join fellow podcast alum and son, Salim Rollins three years ago, and with a borderless mindset hasn’t looked back. Last weekend she held [her first exhibit in Nairobi]([https://www.instagram.com/p/DZmt2RWOQSA/) and we couldn’t be happier to celebrate this dynamic diasporan!

Where to find [Liz]([https://glocalcitizens.fireside.fm/guests/elizabeth-rollins-moskowitz) and Salim?

Special Guest: Elizabeth Rollins-Moskowitz.