The Ripple Map
Hosted by Yassaman Nouri
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Every choice we make travels farther than we realize. Meet the founders, frontline workers and changemakers creating ripples across the world, and hear what it took.
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Episode 1: Where Do You Go When You Need Help, and Who Connects You to It?
Erine Gray. Founder & CEO, Findhelp
Why this episode: At 17, Erine’s mom came home from the hospital and didn’t know who he was. For 24 years he searched for help for someone he loved, and felt the stigma of asking. He failed out of college twice, worked inside the systems meant to help families like his, then built Findhelp, now used by millions to find free and reduced-cost support near them. It’s a founder story about building something for the person you once were, and why every line in a database is a human being.
Episode 2: He Came for His Teeth. She Saw the Whole Person.
Amber Lombardi. Founder & CEO, Mainely Teeth
Why this episode: What if the dentist’s chair was where someone finally got help? Amber was almost born in her dad’s dental office and learned “street dentistry” beside him in Haiti. Years later, as a young single mom, she was the one who needed help and couldn’t find it. Today Mainely Teeth asks about patients’ whole lives before anyone looks at their teeth, and that’s how one man who hadn’t cried in 30 years finally felt seen. It’s for anyone who works with people and wonders what they’re missing.
Episode 4: What Really Causes Poverty?
Dr. Martin Burt. Founder & CEO, Fundacion Paraguaya. Poverty Stoplight
Why this episode: What if we’ve been measuring poverty wrong all along? Dr. Burt grew up under a dictatorship, became mayor of his city, and then spent 40 years asking families a question economists never did. He explains why money is the easy part, what happens when families rate their own lives in red, yellow and green, and why the people living poverty know best how to end it.
Episode 3: Housing Crisis: Who Made Homes Unaffordable?
Leilani Farha. Global Director, The Shift. 2026 CBC Massey Lecturer. Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right of Housing
Why this episode: Your rent didn’t go up by accident. Leilani has sat with families facing eviction around the world, and she still believes we can win home back. She traces who turned homes into investments, why governments let it happen, and what’s working as communities fight back, from Madrid to Vancouver. You’ll never look at a “For Rent” sign the same way again.
Episode 5: How Do You Help Someone Who Won't Even Look at You?
Claudia Fabiola González. Women's Committee Advisor, Fundación Paraguaya. Poverty Stoplight
Why this episode: What if helping someone starts with buying herbs at their stand? Fabiola has spent 12 years walking beside women who lead their families in Paraguay. She shares the client who wouldn't even say hi to her, why she'll sit on a bucket if that's what it takes, what families see when they rate their own lives in red, yellow and green, and why a good coach gets coached too. Fabiola speaks Spanish; an interpreter from Fundación Paraguaya shares her words in English.
Episode 6: How Do You Build a Company that Lasts for Generations?
Dr. Harish Hande. Founder& CEO, Selco Foundation. Founder, Selco India
Why this episode: What if the secret to a company that lasts is the oldest one we forgot? Harish Hande has spent 30 years bringing solar power to families in India who live without electricity. One of his first customers asked to see him on her deathbed. When SELCO India nearly collapsed, 100 of his 140 people wrote to him: don't pay us for six months. And with less than $2,500 in the bank, he said no to a million dollars. He shares how a street vendor taught him what "affordable" really means, why a banana seller asked for yellow light, and why business was always meant to be built on relationships, not transactions.
About The Ripple Map
The Ripple Map is a storytelling-driven podcast built on a simple truth: we're interconnected—and everything we do creates ripples.
Our thoughts, words, choices, and actions travel farther than we realize, shaping lives and systems beyond our immediate view. With that power comes responsibility—and the opportunity to create change, one ripple at a time.
At the heart of this work is an ancient idea that feels more urgent than ever today:
"The sons of Adam are limbs of each other, having been created of one essence. When the calamity of time affects one limb, the other limbs cannot remain at rest. If you have no sympathy for the troubles of others, you are unworthy to be called by the name of a human."
— Saadi Shirazi, Gulistan (1258). Translated from Persian by Edward Rehatsek (1888), lightly modernized.
The Problem We're Tackling
Why do massive social, environmental, and economic problems persist despite billions spent? Too often, the public gets either polished PR or hopeless doom. Meanwhile, innovators using technology to tackle root causes don't get the visibility, support, or resources they deserve.
We don't do PR, and we don't do despair.
What We Do
Each episode brings you into honest conversation with builders creating real change—founders, researchers, grassroots innovators, and policymakers working on systemic challenges. We ask guests to show us the data, walk us through the proof, and be honest about what's hard. We explore failures alongside successes and dig into tradeoffs.
We examine every challenge through a multi-stakeholder lens, asking: Who benefits? Who pays? Who is excluded? Who decides?
What You'll Walk Away With
Better questions matter more than easy answers. That philosophy shapes every episode—we don't just give you solutions, we help you discover your own path forward.
Through evidence-based storytelling and critical questions, you'll understand:
What's really driving the problem beneath the headlines
Why some solutions fall short—and how they sometimes create unintended harm
Which approaches are creating better outcomes, especially those addressing root causes
How to think in nuance, not simplistic "good vs. bad" labels
Your path forward: Concrete actions to create positive ripples today, plus questions worth pursuing that fit your unique circumstances, skills, and connections. Real change starts with better questions and immediate action—both tailored to you.
This isn't just about learning what others are doing "out there." By examining the ripples others create through their work, we invite you to reflect on your own ripple map—the impact of your own thoughts, words, and actions. We help you develop questions worth exploring based on your unique context, because your ripple map is uniquely yours.
Join Us
For listeners: Subscribe to join a community of thoughtful people who care about evidence, nuance, and action. Share your input: nominate guests, submit problems you want us to explore, or share your own ripple map journey.
For potential guests: If you're a builder creating evidence-based solutions and you're willing to have honest conversations about what's working, what's hard, and what you've learned—we'd love to hear from you. This is a space for depth, not soundbites.
My father taught me that before you can help, you have to understand.
When I was five, I saw a man sitting on the street and asked my dad if I could give him money. Instead of handing me money, he asked me a few questions: What did I want to help the man with? Did I know what the man needed? Did I understand why he was there?
I was five and too shy to approach.
Later, my father told me something that stayed with me: real help isn’t about what makes us feel good—it’s about understanding a problem deeply enough to address its root causes.
He told me about a man he had met years earlier—a skilled tailor who had become paralyzed from the waist down. Instead of giving him money, my father helped him get a wheelchair, access to a sewing machine, and a path to rebuild his livelihood.
That moment planted a question I’ve been exploring ever since.
After moving to Vancouver at 13, my curiosity continued to shape the path I chose. My work eventually took me across countries—including Canada, Iran, the UK, and China—across sectors like technology, banking, and consulting. Yet wherever I went, the same question followed me: Are we actually helping?
The turning point came later when I began working in international development, including time spent in Malawi. It was there that the complexity of real-world problems became tangible. I realized that truly understanding a problem requires listening to people with very different experiences, perspectives, and incentives. Only by piecing together those viewpoints could you begin to see the deeper patterns and root causes beneath the surface.
That experience reshaped how I think about impact. Solutions can’t simply be copied from one place to another—they must be designed for the specific people, systems, and context where the problem exists.
Later, working inside large institutions across management consulting, banking and technology, I encountered another side of the equation: execution. I saw how incentives, structures, and scale shape what actually gets built—and how difficult systemic change can be from inside complex organizations.
Across all of these experiences, one question kept resurfacing:
What does it actually mean to help?
The Ripple Map is my attempt to explore that question in public.
Through conversations with founders, researchers, policymakers, and grassroots builders tackling complex challenges, I’m trying to better understand how people create meaningful change within systems—and what ripples those efforts create.
I’m not here as someone with all the answers. I’m here as an inquisitive person still trying to understand how our choices shape the world we share.
Join me in the pursuit of understanding—through conversation and action, we can improve the ripples that impact the world we share.