Richard Ciraulo (Unsplash License)
Have a look and discover a bit more about our wonderful Yo, co-executive director of OLS!
Name: Yochannah Yehudi / Yo Yehudi
Role in OLS:Chaos generator/ Co-executive director
Contact if people want to have a chat? Yo at we are ols dot org :)
Socials: nah
Breakfast and coffee at a leisurely pace with my book, please! A meeting at 10 AM is too early, honestly. I like having a slower start to my day. As co-executive director, my day tends to change a lot from week to week. Some constants are 1:1s with my direct reports (thatās Laura Carter, Riva Quiroga, and Irene Ramos), catchups with my co-exec Patricia Herterich, and weekly team catchups. I use reclaim.ai to help schedule breaks between meetings and enforce my calendar having lunchtimes in it, as well as using it to mirror between my personal calendar and work calendar. The other more varied things involve spending time networking with community, funders, clients, and others in the open research ecosystem, and reading, writing, reflecting. We build a lot of reflection time into our work as a team, with (roughly) quarterly 1:1 retrospectives, as well as project-specific retros. This helps us to learn from things that didnāt go well, so we can iterate and try new things - but also allows us to identify things that do go well, so we can be proud of ourselves and continue doing those bits. This gives us the space to take āfailuresā and make them ālearningsā instead - a much more pleasant way to go through life.
Oh no, are you accusing me of having a life outside my job?! Just kidding ;) I love nature, and physical activities. My teenage self would find that hilarious as I did everything I could to get out of school physical activity lessons (known as āsportā lessons in Israel). The best way to make me ārechargeā is to put me somewhere where there are more plants than humans for a few hours. In the past Iāve cycled long distance (UK Coast-to-Coast, other general bikepacking), run half-marathons, and done long distance hikes, most recently a week walking around the island of Jersey.
Lol no
Yes please!
Um, a plush Finch.
My pronouns. I donāt associate strongly with any gender and I hate how much people expect me to have a āstandardā gender identity. I wish the languages I spoke didnāt have gendered pronouns at all.
A Companion. Every time I see a white horse I will it to Choose me, but they usually just ignore me. I guess my mindspeech isnāt strong enough.
In Glastonbury in 2014, I was corralled into participating in a show of some sort. We only communicated via mime, and I had to wear a silver swimsuit over my clothes, and sing certain notes on-cue.
Eating a whole tub of Ben & Jerryās Cookies on Cookie Dough icecream in one go. I exercise a lot for my mental and physical wellbeing, and the ability to eat a lot is a nice side-effect.
Garlic pasta with lots of olive oil and not much else.
A good pun or a poo joke.
What we make of it, I reckon :) - for me thatās having a reasonably good time myself and trying to share the good times with others around me.
I know this is supposed to be a ādeepā question but I really want to answer āeither my bladder or a cat asking for breakfastā. I really enjoy lying in bed when itās warm and snuggly, and maybe conning my spouse into getting me a coffee while Iām still in bed.
I was forty years old when I learned that I was Autistic and had ADHD. It literally wasnāt possible to have been diagnosed with both when I was a child, as those two diagnoses used to be mutually exclusive. But damn, knowing I had a medically treatable condition (ADHD) and that I wasnāt just ānaughtyā or āa dreamerāā¦. That feels like I would have made one hell of a difference to my self esteem.
We, as humans, make speculative fiction. The thing about these books - often scifi or fantasy - is that they look at the world, say āwhat if this thing was different?ā Then they take that difference and explore what society might be like. If volcanic eruptions were common, how might humanity survive? Can capitalism continue to thrive if there are light-years of distance between the enclaves of sentient beings? What might a whole world united under a single government look like, if it implemented universal basic income?