Three years in, with over 15 episodes under our belt, PRIVATE VIEW(S) has cemented itself as a platform that allows us to amplify the voices of the most inspiring and creative people we work with. Each episode features a different guest – either a founder, brand leader or creative agency – as we pass around the mic and shine a light on how they’re using their talents and flair to build a brighter future.
This episode makes no exception, as we get to know the co-founder and co-CEO of SEED, Ara Katz. SEED develop clinically-studied probiotics made to improve human and planetary health. On a mission to radically transform our approach to medicine, hygiene, diet and the environment, Ara speaks to us about the importance of microbes and their power to impact our lives and the world around us.
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE via Spotify, Soundcloud and Apple Podcasts.
- Max LuthyWhat needs to change in the health sector right now?
Ara KatzWe are just fundamentally unable, at scale and in terms of global public health, to communicate the gravity of some of the issues that we face. We’re also at a place where we’ve never been able to consume so much different communication – and, so, when it comes to health, there’s no shortage of people telling you what to eat on Instagram, and certainly no shortage of people consulting Dr Google on a daily basis. Our belief was, if you could really meet people where they were, show up in different ways and change the design of how health products look, then we can make them more approachable, accessible and better able to be learned and embraced... Instead of it triggering 6th Grade Biology PTSD!
- MLHow important is design when it comes to changing the face of the health sector?
AKThere’s an aspect of design in science that has felt cold, clinical and not very well considered – particularly when it comes to thinking about how this can impact how we comply with taking something every day. So we think a lot about compliance, we think about the aesthetic of how something fits into your life, we think about the system itself (we’re in a refill system, as the first experience only comes once and then you refill it), and we think about sustainability. And, so, a lot of things go into the way we think about design – and, yes, that can feel very luxury, but I think in a lot of ways we feel that health would have a lot more adherence and compliance if good design wasn’t always correlated with higher prices.
- Max LuthyIf we’re the ‘children of the antibiotics generation,’ how do you feel about the next generation after us? Hopeful?
Ara KatzI feel really hopeful. We don’t look at it just in terms of probiotics – we also look at it in terms of awareness of the microbiome, which is certainly growing, and this awareness is helping shape our everyday choices, which is then of course impacting our health. So, in a way, these things are like the dark matter that exists around this shifting consciousness. The microbiome is an area where, starting today, you can make decisions and choices (unlike your genome) which could actually impact your health outcome. I think that’s an unusual field of biology and human health, as well as environmental health to reveal. So, I find these little dots that are making up a much larger constellation will, in time, reveal themselves to be something much bigger than people think they are today. And I think that will change the way we think about treating ourselves and our health.
Listen in full to learn more – available on Spotify, Soundcloud and Apple Podcasts. Don’t forget to subscribe, and we’ll see you there!
