Our Founders
Urgency of now
SDG CoLab is an international non-profit collaboratory founded by Barbara Bulc in 2016 in Geneva, Switzreland in response to a growing need for urgent cultural and systems transformation.
Inspired by Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1967) by Buckminster Fuller, The Limits to Growth (1972) by Donella Meadows et al., and The Dharma of Natural Systems by Joanna Macy (1991), and teachings from various wisdom tradtions, our mission is to steward a cultural transformation, small and large, through collective action towards a wellbeing society flourishing in harmony with natural systems as a whole.
We are grateful to our Founding Board members Jeremy Lack and Lina Beaurain, along with other Board members Adi Constantin Gavrila, Martin Heller and Fritz Hinterberger for continuous support.
Barbara's Story
I was born in Slovenia, where the Southern Alps meet the Northern Mediterranean Sea. I am grateful to my parents and ancestors that I grew up in a lineage of love. I have always felt inside that I am part of a larger Earth community based on the same human values, care for others and trust in each other. In my late 20s I found myself leading a Slovenian healthcare company KRKA in New York. I noticed that even in health-care, profit motives were always prioritized over care. I felt this was profoundly wrong, but somehow this seemed to be the accepted way!
With this insight I transitioned from the corporate world to explore new ways of working together for common good. Part of this was working with the Clinton Foundation tackling global HIV/AIDS pandemic in a new way.
My practice today is focused on creating new social structures, a new social chemistry that prioritizes wellbeing of people, other species and the planet.
I studied chemistry and social sciences at Ljubljana University and business management and leadership at Columbia University Business School in New York and Judge Business School in Cambridge. Although I gained importnat knowledge at these universities, I had to go through a process of unlearning, and discovery of othe fields of knowledge and wisdom. Over the past ten years I have practiticed meditation in a variety of Buddhist and other wisdom traditions. My importnat teachers in conptemplative and spiritual traditions have included Jon Kabat Zinn, Gyetrul Jigme Rinpoche, Joan Halifax and Emmanuel Vaughan Lee. And systems thinker Fritjof Capra, eco-philosopher Joanna Macy and cultural philosopher David Abram, among others. I have expreinced and I believe that embodied awareness and storytelling otherwise are key to our personal and collective transformation. These are also practices I wish to bring to the world.