Thoughtlines: academic thinking outside the box
Series 1 | Episode 11: Trish Lorenz – We are what we disrupt
In this episode we answer a $100,000 question.
Writer and journalist Trish Lorenz won the global essay competition, The Nine Dots Prize, by turning anxiety about the world’s ageing population on its head and celebrating the game-changing power of Africa’s ‘youthquake’.
Part of the prize is the chance to spend a term at CRASSH, and turn that initial 3,000 word entry into a book published by Cambridge University Press. But Trish took the long way round from her home in Berlin – arriving in Cambridge via Lagos and Abuja where she found and interviewed the young Africans who best represent the energy, the ingenuity, and the infectious generosity that she wanted to highlight.
The ‘Soro Soke’ generation in Nigeria, and beyond, are outspoken, urban, tech savvy, globally connected, and unlike any demographic that has come before. So what happens when we start tuning in to what they have to say?
- Presented by broadcast journalist Catherine Galloway and produced by Carl Homer of Cambridge TV.
- Thoughtlines is available via most podcast platforms.
Learn more:
- Follow Trish Lorenz on Twitter and on Instagram.
- Find further examples of Trish’s journalism.
- When Trish misses Lagos, and the energy of the Soro Soke generation, she listens to this track by Wizkid (the most steamed Nigerian artist of all time).
- Two albums that represent the sounds of contemporary Nigeria, both released in 2020, are WizKid’s ‘Made in Lagos’ and Burna Boy’s ‘Twice as Tall’.
- More information on the publication announcement for Trish’s book on the Soro Soke generation in Africa, appearing in May 2022, can be found on the Nine Dots Prize website.
- Read a recent UNICEF study on what it feels like to be young in today’s world.
- Read a discussion on Africa’s ‘youthquake’.
- Listen to the story of how Jesus College, Cambridge, returned a Benin bronze to Nigeria.
