Accepting my appointment as Executive Director of SDG Action Hub Kenya…

Hello UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Action Hub, Kenya

I formally accept my role and commit to SDG Action Hub, Kenya, so that we can continue our shared “living” Nobel-winning Academic DNA together. Professor Ezekiel Okemwa and I dialogued about my research into Culture and Sustainability in Feb 2023 while I was in Paris. As I write this in Switzerland, I am reflecting on his legacy in sustainability and his pivotal role at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which was founded in Geneva in 1988. He protected the Indian Ocean’s biodiversity, connected to pan-Africa significantly yet his work was overlooked sometimes in the Global North.

We talked about safeguarding “living waters” and the “living culture” they nurture, expanding into the interconnectedness of our ecosystems and human heritage. I honour his work by assuming his former role as Executive Director of the SDG Action Hub Kenya, with research offices in Nairobi, Mombasa and Bungoma. After reviewing Professor Ezekiel’s research since the 1980s, which were sent to me from my homeland, Australia via California, I appreciate his field changing influences in Oceanography and Sustainability Sciences.

As the African Union (AU) joined the G20 becoming G21 in 2024, our work in Pan-Africa as custodians of life in the Anthropocene is just beginning! Pan Africa can offer the world lessons in safeguarding life and “living” culture. Despite challenges, including toxic academia enabling Climate Obfuscations with cyber harassment of Sustainability researchers globally, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their 2030 agenda vindicate our decades of data-based conclusions.  Like Vice President Al Gore who acted as the focuser for Nobel Peace Prize 2007 in Sustainability, Professor Ezekiel and I were in complete agreement regarding the importance of supporting grassroots efforts to enhance “living cultures” that arise from “living waters”. SDG Action Hub Kenya will bridge science and social sciences to safeguard natural and human resources, especially those “living” tangible and intangible elements that are intrinsic to the wonders of our planet such as “living waters” and its interdependent “living” cultures!

I pledge, as a Nobel Prize Teacher, to preserve the academic integrity of Sustainability as a field and to promulgate the Academic DNA of our “living” culture as your Executive Director. Together, we will continue as caretakers and custodians of the illustrious Nobel winning Academic DNAs and fuse them with practical applications, in our generation. We will pass on such Academic DNAs to future generations because they have conferred the greatest benefits to humankind! That is why they are Nobel winning!

We are confident in the knowledge that while we stand on the shoulders of giants, any Nobel winning legacies of future generations will exceed previous achievements! This may seem daunting, but my experience with Nobel laureates show it is possible with creativity and an unwavering determination to leave our world in a better state than what we inherited!

We will do all that is Possible and Impossible to attain the values behind the UN SDG goals. As a nod to the courageous and strategically creative Life of Professor Ezekiel Okemwa, let us agree together that we will honour all living things on this planet and beyond….

“To bravely go where no Nobel laureates have gone before….” 🙂

Thank you very much.

Doctor Cecilia W. Yu 余詠詩
Artist, Sustainability Economist & Nobel Prize Teacher.