Big Fight Blue Soul

6) Focus and follow-through: starting a non-profit with Dylan Brown

Aliya Siddiqi Season 1 Episode 6

We love friends supporting friends! Dylan shares his experience on working towards his passion of starting his own non-profit based on diving and citizen science where local community members can contribute to reef  resilience in Oahu, Hawaii through monitoring and restoration efforts. We also take the time to discuss how the context of Hawaii and local ecological knowledge plays an important role in his initiative. We touch on failures, timing, and having a good team. Enjoy!

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EP HIGHLIGHTS:

[17:35] “for my own mental health I need to have those one or two days off a week and it alloewd me to then focus my dry energy on OAP and backend stuff to get gears in motion so it can start” - DB

[24:03] “Goal is to restore the reef with more thermally-resistent corals better adapted to climate change…with the need to get community members involved  ” - DB

[27:34] “if we’re relying only the people who went to school for marine biology to solve   all the oceans problems then we’re fighting a losing battle” - DB

[31:29] “the culture and history of hawaii is very specific, it was a soverign nation thats basically been taken over illegally by the US so how has that impacted…this whole initiative?” - AS

[34:27] “There are people with maybe no marine biology training, no marine biology degree, and they still will  likely know a lot more than me about these ecosystems” -DB

[39:18] “Why do you personally put so much value in citizen science and why did you choose that specifically to be the basis for your non-profit?” - AS

[44:18] “One of the biggest critiques [of volun-tourism] is that a lot of the time it’s really supportive of people who are privileged enough to have the money to spend on those programs…” - AS  

[44:07] “Did you have a mentor or person in the field that youre working with or has inspired you to work through these obstacles  or just help keep yourself motivated?” - AS

[55:15] “I’ve gotten really familiar with the thought of failing and every time I welcome it. i’ve built it up so if it fails, its okay, its still a winning idea” - DB  

[56:07] “You gotta build a plan and then you gotta follow through on the plan” - DB

[1:02:02] Rapid Fire Questions
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Crown of Thorns Culling Effectiveness and Rationale 

Finlay comedy Millenials vs. Gen Z 

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz 

Eye on the Reef Australia and Hawaii 

Emil Wakim comedy [depression in your 20s] 

Ep. 324 Green Dreamer  

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Find Dylan:

IG @oceanallianceproject
https://www.oceanallianceproject.org/

Support the show (patreon.com/bigfightbluesoulpodcast)

People on this episode