In this video, Laura Schlehuber interviews Houston Foresight alumni Ali Llewellyn on her passions and humanity in the next 20 years.

Laura: We as creatures, we do not like change, we do not want to change, we have to become so uncomfortable in our current state to actually do that. And hope…either hope or fear are the things that can pull us out of that.

Ali: Well, we’ve taught people this, this complacency. We’ve taught them like you can’t create change. You’re too small or you don’t have the agency or you don’t have the perspective. We’ve removed people from an understanding of their world, and an awareness that they can have impact in it. Okay. And I find that even in the government, I spend so much of my work and future’s going, No, no, no, you can do something different. Change starts with you. And it’s not so systematic that you can’t move forward.

Laura: Right, right. Right. Okay. Any particular topics in the world right now that are especially interesting to you, that you’d like to talk about? Or that you’re exploring?

Ali: You know, we just started not to keep it in my own world. But yes, my world. Yeah, we just started a real agency level feature of NASA. You know, in the program, we’d done some work with NASA. You know, it’s the first time we’ve seen an agency level interest in how do we identify potential scenarios? And how do we think differently now to impact which one we end up at? And that’s a revolutionary thing. So I’m pretty passionate about that. I talk in my speech for class next week, in fact, about what’s the change, we talk in the in social change about they’re, like, 10 questions? What are those 10 questions that identify your own assumptions about social change? And one of them is what’s the biggest change you think will happen in the next 20 years? And I fervently believe, not just because I work at NASA, that it’s human beings living off planet long term, not just on the space station, but on the moon and on other planets, because it’s not just a technology change. It’s not just an organizational change, it changes the human story. Absolutely. When we change the human story, yeah, we get to transformation. Yeah, there are pieces of that technology. And all the technology is great. But until it changes the story.

Laura: when we change the human story is when we get transformation?

Ali: I think. That’s why I’m so passionate about exploration. I’ve been talking even this all this week about people who go well, I believe, in humans so I’m not interested in space exploration, but going, Hey, I believe in humans too. and that’s why I believe in space. Why I think there’s power in that. So helping people change their mindset. Exploration is really a profoundly human endeavor. And then as we change that human condition, so will we radically change what becomes possible. And that’s why I get so excited about that right now. So a lot is happening in exploration right now. That that becomes a change that I really care about.

Laura: Amaaaazinnnngggg.