The Solutionists, with Mark Scott

“If you’re going to have a breakdown, try not to have it in a top secret secure naval dockyard.” 

You might know Alastair Campbell as the formidable former press secretary of British prime minister Tony Blair and co-host of popular podcast The Rest is Politics. 

But back in 1996, when Alastair was a high-flying tabloid journalist, his mind suddenly unravelled. “I was hearing voices and seeing things that weren’t there.” 

Alastai...

If you had a clone of yourself, what would you want it to do? 

Professor Danny Liu pictures a classroom in the not-too-distant future where teachers work alongside AI ‘clones’ to help their students learn. 

“It’s not about replacing them as teachers. It’s about empowering them and making them more effective.” 

The role of artificial intelligence in education has been hotly debated, with concerns about cheating creating headlines...

If you go into your backyard right now, you’ll be able to find a species of insect that is new to science. Tanya Latty guarantees it – even if you live in the inner city. 

Tanya has loved creepy crawlies since she was little, and is now an entomologist at the University of Sydney. “You would be surprised how many things we don't know. There are all sorts of critters, most of which are probably unidentified.”  

But around the worl...

After her son died of SIDS, Dr Carmel Harrington left her job as a lawyer to devote her career to finding answers.

“You blame yourself. You must have missed something. How can such a catastrophic event occur without any sign or symptom?”

Her groundbreaking research into SIDS opened up another mission: to wake society up to the critical importance of sleep.

Carmel is the managing director of Sleep for Health. High-flying CEOs and...

Neonatologist Adrienne Gordon helps save the lives of tiny babies in intensive care. They constantly amaze her.

Their unique personalities. How fast they learn. The way they can be so close to death and yet go on to thrive.

Adrienne shares what parents need to know about the first 1,000 days, the critical period from conception to the age of two.

“Some of the most important aspects of life are before you even arrive,” Adrienne s...

Andrew Scott was born in 1965. His identical twin died within the first few days of life.

Decades later, Andrew looked through the stats, and got a surprise.

"I found that the first year of life was the most common age of death in England at that time. Today, the most common age of death is 87,” he says.

We’re all living longer, and in many countries, a baby born today could easily live to 100.

Andrew is a world-leading expert ...

In the dark of night, through the mud and the monsoon rain, Richard Harris and a group of cave divers band together for a risky mission to rescue a group of boys from a flooded cave in Thailand.

Her country split down the middle, Julia Gillard negotiates for 17 agonising days to win the support of crossbench politicians and become Australia’s first female prime minister.

To achieve big and lasting change, people need to find a wa...

“She started to explain to me about rhythms and melodies and harmonies and how they all fit together in a beautiful symmetry. And I said to her, ‘That is all mathematics.’”

An infectious smile flashes across Eddie Woo’s face as he recalls meeting singer-songwriter Odette backstage at a TED Talk. She told him she didn’t like maths; he found a way to connect it to her world.

“Mathematics is like music to the mind, in a way that mus...

Picture the towering waves of a tsunami rolling in. The ground cracking open in an earthquake. Fiery red embers raining down during a bushfire.

Heatwaves kill more people than all natural disasters combined – but because they’re not visually dramatic, we underestimate how dangerous they are.

“On the day of a heatwave, it will look very much like it does today. The people dying during heat waves are doing so predominantly outside ...

We’re at the crossroads of uncertainty and innovation.

From global warming to tech addiction, huge demographic shifts and geopolitical tensions – it's easy to feel overwhelmed.

But some incredible people are putting their minds toward solving the most pressing issues of our time. They’re working to make our world a better place to call home.

Join Mark Scott, the Vice Chancellor and President at the University of Sydney, and get ...