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Igniting Change Podcast Season 3: Episode 1
For the first episode of Season 3 of 'Igniting Change', Rich and Gabby sat down with Alex de Brunner, Founder of Ethos, to discuss how, at just 19 years old, she released a social media platform to encourage Gen Z to change the world.
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It’s hard to remember a time when social media didn’t play a central role in most of our day-to-day lives. When we could enjoy an artful latte or have a political stance without blasting it out to all 793 (but who’s counting) of our devoted followers. What seemingly began innocuously as a way to show the world which of your friends made the coveted spot in your top 8 friends hierarchy, or spend an inordinate amount of time choosing the *perfect* MySpace profile tune, has now evolved into the content churning machine we all know and can’t get away from today.
Apologies, my Millennial is showing.
But it’s all fun and games until the litany of toxic, harmful, and downright dangerous collateral damage social media offers makes us peer over those rose-colored glasses and wonder if it’s worth it. From the spread of misinformation to trolling and toxic online behaviour, it seems like as it stands, offers a helluva lot more harm than good.
Until Alejandra de Brunner came along…
Meet Alex
While studying physics and philosophy at the University of Oxford (and later, UCL), 19-year-old student Alejandra de Brunner founded the ETHOS Network in 2020. With an emphasis on positive interaction and social change above all, ETHOS is specifically geared towards Gen Z and the issues they value most, whether that’s mental well-being, women’s rights, climate change, or education.
The difficulty to find dedicated information about social matters touched a nerve with her. She noticed it seemed neigh impossible to discover dedicated information about social matters without going directly to specific causes. It was a missing piece across the social networks that her peers ‘live on’.
It was this frustration that inspired her to found Ethos.
Their mission is to enable Gen Z to participate in social and environmental action. To build a community where users can actively learn about a variety of social issues, connect with people with similar passions and engage with purpose-driven brands.
This sounds like a social media platform we can get behind!
What is Ethos?
Their mission is to enable Gen Z to participate in social and environmental action. To build a community where users can actively learn about a variety of social issues, connect with people with similar passions and engage with purpose-driven brands.
Why focus on Gen Z?
Young people have a passion for driving positive change and are passionate advocators of social change. Times are a-changin’ and the need for a platform that was made just for them was obvious. One that is first and foremost, personal and provides users with a dedicated place for social involvement.
None of the major social networks were built to facilitate progress around shared causes and encourage widespread participation in social and environmental solutions. It was obvious to Alex that the current social media platforms are not meeting the needs for a new type of social matters conversation.
People want to have a trusted place with direct access to fact checks where they can represent and engage with the causes that matter to them – that’s what Ethos is all about.
How is ETHOS different from existing social networks?
At its core, Ethos is a social hub that lets users build their own profile and identity around the social issues that matter to them whilst discovering new causes. Current social networks weren’t designed with that in mind. It’s easy to get lost learning about new social issues or trying to find people who have shared interests.
Ethos was built precisely for this purpose – there is huge potential for the discussion around social issues to be amplified and made more easily discoverable.
Instead of building profiles and online personas around a cultivated image, profiles on ETHOS are built on the particular issue that each user cares about most. From there, the app helps them connect with educational and solution-oriented content about these topics, as well as other people and groups who care.
A test version of the app was launched in 2020 and now, after some recalibration, the finished version is available in the App Store. It’s been at and steady incline for de Brunner and her team over the past two years, and this is just the beginning! ETHOS has gathered the support of leading investors and advisors in the industry and is set to reach 35M members of its target Gen Z demographic in 2023.
In all the time I had spent on social media it had never helped me progress the side of me and my personality that cares about various causes
Listen to the full episode here
Published on March 9, 2023, last updated on March 9, 2023
