SHE x TOOL Oslo-Mumbai 2020: Slow travel, with time to learn

Originally published February 25, 2020 Back in the days, traveling internationally was time consuming and expensive. It was considered a luxury, for the privileged. In our time, it can be cheaper to fly halfway around the world, than buying a train ticket to the other side of your own country (train tickets Oslo-Bodø with sleeping cabin as example).

In the same way that we unconsciously over consume food, clothes and all kind of things to fill our desires, we have also adapted a way of traveling where we lose the perception of distances. We want more, faster, now.

As a peculiar parallel to how we chase “tomorrow” and something better down the line rather than embracing today, we have our eyes on the destination rather than the actual journey. We enter a plane, turn on a screen and don’t really reflect on what´s going on underneath us, across the vast and diverse areas we cross.

With this journey, I wanted to explore slow traveling, where the actual journey is the key focus; while also exploring more around the various alternatives of transportation. Comparing options; benefits, challenges, and aspects in need of improvement or further roll-out of existing solutions.

While also utilizing the time spent looking at how change agents from very different cultures take lead and create solutions for the future, rather than waiting for others to do it for them. As the reason for my travel is a collaboration on equality initiatives between Norway and India, I have specifically looked for female change makers – as well as male ones who push for more equality and diversity in their societies.

Equality & diversity to me means opening up for exploring the world with a wider lense. Like filming with a 360 camera instead of a standard one. We pick up more of what lies ahead, and what’s behind us.

I also wanted to look at how key scientifically proven leadership skills linked to female leadership skills function in very different societies. Such as leading by example, relation and collaboration focused, ecosystem thinking, empathy and helping others.

All of these are crucial when we approach very complex global challenges, that seems difficult to resolve with strongman leadership. This as we need to appeal to and motivate our societies to change of individual mindset, which is better achieved through inspiration than by force. And also because the world consist of very diverse groups of people, so we need a much broader set of insights to identify the path ahead.

I’ve focused primarily on people in the business sector, which holds so much potential and power for accelerating change much quicker than within politics and NGOs. My hope is to showcase inspiration that can both trigger environmentalists to contribute as business activists, and to promote existing ones who work on solutions that others can gain inspiration from.

Happy reading 📖