Oxford Smith School alum’s journey from student to venture founder
During her time on the Smith School MSc, Hannah Sassi focused her dissertation on locally-led climate change adaptation – researching how communities in Kenya and South Africa responded to existential climate risks in ways that were deeply contextual and place-based. What stood out beyond the scale of the challenges was the strength of local responses: small, often under-recognised initiatives that were quietly building resilience, fostering local innovation, and creating tangible impact within their networks and communities.
“It really struck me how much was happening at the local level – and you see this in many places once you start looking for it,” says Hannah. “There is a huge amount of knowledge, creativity, and action embedded in communities but it’s often fragmented, under-resourced, and not always visible.”
This experience led Hannah to a broader question: if a growing number of people care about climate change and so much meaningful work is already happening, why is it so difficult for more people to engage on a regular basis in their own communities?
"Much of the SEE course and broader discussions rightly focused on large-scale systems’ transformation – as it relates to energy, infrastructure, policy, and so on.,” says Hannah. But Hannah “But I often came back to the more personal layer sitting below everything: how people spend their time, attention, and money, and how to build systems’ change from the bottom up. “The more sustainable and community-oriented option (often ‘free’ and intrinsically rewarding) requires more effort, more time, more awareness – and that friction really matters.”
That tension became the starting point for Redirect – an online platform for community engagement and climate action. The idea behind it is straightforward: what if it were just as easy and just as engaging to get involved in local sustainability initiatives as it is to scroll social media or buy something online?
“We all know we are living in an attention economy, and companies have built incredibly effective systems for capturing that attention and shaping our behaviour,” she notes Hannah. “The question was whether those same underlying dynamics can ‘redirect’ people toward activities that are both more meaningful and benefit our planet.”
After finishing her degree, Hannah began exploring how to turn that idea into something she could test. Through the Oxford climate ventures ecosystem, she received support from entrepreneurship programmes, mentors, researchers, and practitioners. Much of the initial work focused on customer discovery, which involved speaking with potential users, engaging local organisations, and testing early versions of Redirect.
The first insight was there is no shortage of activity at the local level. In Oxford, there are hundreds of initiatives – from repair cafés and community gardens to climate workshops and local events. However, activity is fragmented across different websites, mailing lists, and platforms, which makes it difficult for more people to engage consistently. “There’s all this energy and effort already there, but it’s across a small percentage of the population and surprisingly hard to find, and even harder to plug into. I hated the idea that someone might get overwhelmed or discouraged by the initial process of getting involved and then give up completely, especially given all the other distractions on offer,.” says Hannah.
Redirect is now being piloted across Oxfordshire to see how Hannah’s idea can promote local action. The platform brings together events, volunteering opportunities, and local initiatives into a single space, making it easier for people to discover and participate in their community. It also explores how community engagement can be made to feel more natural, visible, and rewarding by allowing users to track their activity, connect with others nearby and see what they are joining, and access rewards from local partners. “So far, early feedback from users and local organisations has been encouraging,” says Hannah.
Hannah presenting Redirect as part of the Oxford Climate Ventures programme
But for Hannah, one of the most important parts of the journey has been the people she has engaged along the way. Building Redirect has involved meeting with community organisers, local leaders, and residents, all working in different ways to build a more sustainable and resilient community. “It’s been one of the most inspiring parts of the process to connect into this wider ecosystem of passionate environmentalists and activists in Oxford.,” she says.
Her experience has also reinforced the importance of systems thinking and intervention points, which were influential ideas from the MSc programme: “While much attention is given to individual behaviour change, that behaviour is shaped by the systems within which people operate – the incentives, the defaults, and the platforms that compete for our attention and resources. We can’t ask people to change the way they do things without trying to change the context that drives that behaviour. We have to demonstrate the real benefits of doing things differently.”
“The venture is still early days; there remains a lot of uncertainty and hard work ahead. But going from an idea to a platform that people can actively use has already been a valuable journey.”
"If you ask others in my MSc course, I was probably the last person they would expect to be a venture founder. But I think that when we see where our current systems aren’t working, we must move out of comfort zones to build new alternatives that can lead to real change. That is my hope for Redirect and that I can bring it to communities around the world.”
You can check out and join the Redirect platform today.
If you want to reach out to Hannah directly, her email is hannah.sassi@sbs.ox.ac.uk.