Connected Conversations

We live in the most connected era in history — and one of the loneliest. Connected Conversations, hosted by Elena Petrova, is the show about the art and science of human connection.Each week, Elena sits down with psychologists, technologists, community builders, cultural translators, and frontline practitioners to explore how we reach each other — through language, culture, body language, and human-centered technology — and how we build the communities that give our lives meaning.

Connected Conversations is a society podcast hosted by Elena Petrova, with 67 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Elena Petrova hosts Connected Conversations, a society show with 67 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #56

  "Right Now It's All a Show": A Founder's Honest Take on Inclusion | Lisa Mae Brunson

  Aug 5, 20261h 10mS1

  What if the most inclusive team you could build starts with one reframe: the human first, the role second? Lisa Mae Brunson has spent a decade building Wonder Women Tech, the conferences, hackathons, and STEAM programs for the people the tech industry left out, as someone who knew exactly what being left out felt like. She and Elena get into how belonging actually gets designed, why so much "inclusion" is theater, what designing access for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing taught her about every "accessible" room, and where technology that includes people can quietly begin to surveil them. New episodes of Connected Conversations every week on YouTube and Spotify. Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music also carry the show. Hosted by Elena Petrova. Connected Conversations is produced by Ad Astra, Inc.

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  Episode #55

  He Grew Up With No Computer. Now He's Building AI for 70 Languages

  Jul 22, 20261h 1mS1

  Ten languages moved freely through the house Sheriff Issaka grew up in. Then he came to the US and watched the people he loved most be unable to say a word to each other. In this episode, Elena Petrova sits down with Sheriff Issaka, Founder and Head of Research at the African Languages Lab, who turned that gap into his life's work: building the tools to bring African languages into the technology the rest of us already take for granted. It starts as one person's story and opens into a bigger question. Who gets to be understood by the systems we are all about to live inside, and who is actually in the room building them? Along the way: what it really costs to be a "low resource" language, why localization decides whether technology helps a community or harms it, why Sheriff calls Africa the world's next market, and his challenge to everyone building AI, look at who is in the room. Plus Sheriff answers the question we ask every guest: what conversation do more people need to be having right now? Hosted by Elena Petrova. Connected Conversations is produced by Ad Astra, Inc.

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  Episode #54

  "Tell Him He's Right": How a Photographer Learned to Stop Playing God | Rick Smolan Part 2

  Jul 8, 20261h 2mS1

  The story continues. And it gets stranger. In 1978, Rick Smolan was twenty-eight years old andphotographing an eleven-year-old girl in Korea when her grandmother made an impossible request. Part 1 of this conversation told you what she asked. Part 2 tells you what happened next — including a night in a burning Seoul hotel that neither of them was supposed to survive, and a promise Rick made to God on an eleventh-floor balcony that has shaped the forty-five years since. From there, Elena and Rick go somewhere harder. They talkabout the shyness that quietly shaped a life spent behind a camera. About smartphones giving everyone a camera, and AI taking away our ability to trust any of the images they produce. About Rick's original idea — the "algorithm exchange" — and what it reveals about the invisible systems already deciding what you see, buy, and believe. And about a conversation Rick believes society is still refusing to have. A conversation about truth, trust, human connection, andour responsibility to shape the tools we build before they begin shaping us. Plus Rick answers the question we now ask every guest:what conversation do more people need to be having right now? Hosted by Elena Petrova.Connected Conversations is produced by Ad Astra, Inc.

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  Episode #54

  How Technology Is Changing Storytelling Forever | Rick Smolan

  Jul 1, 202615 minS1

  Rick Smolan has spent more than four decades telling stories that connect people across cultures, generations, and technologies.In this mini episode of Connected Conversations, Rick explains how storytelling has evolved beyond the printed page. From photographing Robyn Davidson's legendary journey across the Australian Outback to creating smartphone-enabled books that instantly unlock TED Talks, videos, and behind-the-scenes moments, he shares why technology should enrich a story—not replace it.Together, Elena and Rick explore:• Why storytelling continues long after a photograph is taken• How technology can deepen human connection instead of distracting from it• The evolution from traditional books to interactive storytelling experiences• Why the best technology helps people experience stories in entirely new waysTechnology changes.Great stories endure.Hosted by Elena Petrova, Founder & CEO of Ad Astra, Inc. and AdAstraConnect.Subscribe for more conversations about communication, storytelling, technology, and the communities we build around them.

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  Episode #54

  Forty Thousand Children, One Best Friend Met in Line, and a Camera That Crosses Every Language

  Jun 24, 20261h 5mS1

  Rick Smolan was twenty-eight years old, photographing for Time magazine, when a dying grandmother in a Korean village asked him to take her eleven-year-old granddaughter to America. He said yes — and that yes set the shape of everything that came next. In Part 1 of this conversation, Rick Smolan shares the remarkable story behind Natasha's adoption, the chance encounter that made it possible, and the lessons about human connection, storytelling, and serendipity that have shaped his life's work. In this episode, Elena Petrova talks with Rick about the famous photograph that became the talk seen by over a million people — and about the four-decade arc of work that followed it: the Day in the Life book series, 24 Hours in Cyberspace, The Human Face of Big Data, and the smartphone-enabled books that anticipated AI by years. We talk about why he calls himself the chief cat herder rather than the star. Why an introvert with a camera became one of the world's most prolific crowd-sourced storytellers. What a photograph knows about human connection that words don't. And how a chance meeting in line at an American Express office in Madrid quietly changed a child's life eight years later. A conversation about how we actually reach each other, across language, across distance, across time.Hosted by Elena Petrova, Founder & CEO of Ad Astra, Inc. and AdAstraConnect. Subscribe for more conversations about communication, leadership, technology, and the communities we build around them.

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