Exponential with Amanda Lang

This week on Exponential: Recently a Canadian human rights tribunal ruled that after decades of discrimination against indigenous children and their families, the Canadian government owes compensation; the maximum amount the tribunal can levy. At heart is the practice by child and family services of removing First Nations children from their families. Cindy Blacktock has been involved in the case since its inception. She is the Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada.

This week on Exponential, Ron Tite, CEO of Marketing for Church+State, has spent his professional life helping businesses build and communicate their brands to the public. His new book, “Think, Do,Say: Building Personal and Organizational Momentum in a Busy, Busy World” distills the wisdom he learned over decades into a concise message.

This week on Exponential: When Canadians think of our iconic businesses, Blackberry comes to mind. Born in Waterloo Ontario in 1996 as a pager company, Blackberry dominated the market for handheld devices… until it didn’t. Now under new leadership with an aim to changing its focus from devices to software, Blackberry is a different company than the one we knew. But its too soon to count it out. Today, a couple of perspectives on Blackberry. This episode features Peter Misek of Framework Venture Partners and Chuck Howitt, author of the book "Blackberry Town"

This week on Exponential, why would one of the largest health networks, running some of the biggest hospitals in the country, decide to get into the business of social housing? That’s what University Health Network said recently it will do, by partnering with the city of Toronto and United Way. I talked to Dr Andrew Boozary, Executive Director of Health and Social Policy, about why housing and health go hand in hand.

This week on Exponential, October 10 is World Mental Health day, which made it the perfect day to launch a new book, “The Awesome Music Project.” It’s stories about music and the way it moves us, and it’s a tool to raise awareness and money for research into music and mental health. The project is collaboration between two very creative minds. Terry Stuart is Chief Innovation Officer at Deloitte in Canada…and Rob Carli is an award-winning composer and professional musician.

This week on Exponential, Ilana Ben Ari is the founder of a company called 21 toys…its first product was a toy designed to help people learn about empathy…its latest, aims to teach failure. I asked her when she landed on the idea of teaching concepts like these through toys.

This week on Exponential, when most people hear the words “sex trafficking” they think of foreign countries. But the truth is, the young women forced into the sex trade are predominantly Canadian-born. Toronto’s Covenant House has become a major advocate for young people caught in this life…Julie Neubauer is the manager of Anti-Human Trafficking Services.

This week on Exponential, recently the US-based business roundtable made an important announcement. This group, which represents the biggest US companies, said that no longer should pure profit be the ‘purpose’ of a corporation…but rather, it should consider other things, like the environment, employees and customers. Nell Minnow is a globally recognized expert on business and governance and Vice Chair of Value-Edge Advisors. I asked her what the ‘purpose’ of a corporation is.