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    229 – Reflections on the Joint Mathematics Meeting Part 2

    January 20, 2026

    In this episode, Santiago and David delve into David's experiences at the Joint Maths Meeting. They highlight talks on applied category theory, reflecting on the importance of adapting presentations to different audiences. David shares insights on the role and impact…

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    228 – Reflections on the Joint Mathematics Meeting Part 1

    January 16, 2026

    In this episode, Santiago and David discuss David's insightful experiences at the Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) in the U.S. They explore the significance of collaboration, the role of open educational resources like WeBWork, and the challenges and opportunities in both…

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    227 – Managing vs Leading

    January 13, 2026

    Lily and David discuss the nuanced distinction between managing and leading. They compare structured roles to leadership that emerges naturally, and consider leadership as servitude, given versus taken leadership, and the inverted pyramid approach that supports team members to take…

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    226 – Is Diversity Always Good?

    January 9, 2026

    Lily and David discuss IDEMS' guiding principle of embracing diversity. They explore the benefits and significant challenges of this principle, including personal experiences and the organisation's journey. Despite difficulties, they highlight how diversity has strengthened IDEMS, providing adaptability and unique…

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    225 – Expanding on Personalised Education

    January 6, 2026

    This is a follow-up to episodes 216 and 223, it is recommended to listen to those first. In this episode, Santiago and founding director David consider the nuances of achieving personalised education through the five quiz model. They highlight the…

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    224 – Turning Challenges into Opportunities

    January 2, 2026

    In this episode, Lily and David discuss transforming challenges in low-resource educational environments into opportunities. David shares his experiences in leveraging limited funding and facilities, advocating for individual initiative, and generating agency among students and staff.

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    223 – Investigating Personalised Education

    December 30, 2025

    In this episode, Santiago and David discuss the idea of personalised education within standardised education. They explore the challenges and opportunities of using adaptive learning technologies to customize educational materials for individual needs to thrive in standardised systems. They also…

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    222 – The Five Interns of Christmas

    December 26, 2025

    Lucie and David discuss a $7,000 grant from Float, funding internships to support tech projects in West Africa and Kenya. The initiative will advance community tech in agroecology and prepare for a larger $45,000 workshop, emphasizing IDEMS' focus on capacity…

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    221 – Ethical Investments:  Social Enterprise Impact Bonds

    December 23, 2025

    In this podcast episode, Santiago and David discuss IDEMS’ strategy for sustainable growth through Social Enterprise Impact Bonds. They revisit the concept of 'fundamentally profitable', emphasizing the need for financial sustainability to support impactful projects. The conversation highlights their unique…

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    Impact Area
    IDEMS Domain
    Sociotechnical Innovation

    223 – Investigating Personalised Education

    In this episode, Santiago and David discuss the idea of personalised education within standardised education. They explore the challenges and opportunities of using adaptive learning technologies to customize educational materials for individual needs to thrive in standardised systems. They also touch on the historical context and future potential of educational tools.

    222 – The Five Interns of Christmas

    Lucie and David discuss a $7,000 grant from Float, funding internships to support tech projects in West Africa and Kenya. The initiative will advance community tech in agroecology and prepare for a larger $45,000 workshop, emphasizing IDEMS’ focus on capacity building and collaboration.

    221 – Ethical Investments:  Social Enterprise Impact Bonds

    In this podcast episode, Santiago and David discuss IDEMS’ strategy for sustainable growth through Social Enterprise Impact Bonds. They revisit the concept of ‘fundamentally profitable’, emphasizing the need for financial sustainability to support impactful projects. The conversation highlights their unique funding model, offering ethical and secure returns for investors, aimed at fostering social impact while avoiding high-risk ventures.

    220 – RMS Workshop Reflections: Presenting Results

    Lucie and David discuss their recent workshops in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, focusing on teaching effective research visualizations to diverse stakeholders within the Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems. They highlight the importance of visual storytelling, the challenges faced, and the inspiring engagement of local teams.

    219 – Factors in Statistics

    How can we transform complex data into understandable information? In this episode, Lily and David discuss the concept of factors in data analysis. They consider the historical context of factors, their importance in grouping data, and how they revolutionise statistical thinking.

    218 – SmileyCoin

    How can we incentivise student learning? Santiago and David discuss various educational technologies and innovations, focusing particularly on SmileyCoin and the SmileyTutor system from Iceland. David shares insights from his collaboration with Gunnar Stefánsson, who developed a unique system that uses multiple choice questions to enhance student learning, and integrates a cryptocurrency designed to incentivise learning by rewarding students financially.

    217 – A Dive into PreTeXt

    Santiago and David provide an in-depth look at PreTeXt, an open-source authoring tool designed to separate the roles of authors and publishers. David recounts his early interactions with PreTeXt founder Rob Beezer and discusses the evolution and principles behind the tool. They highlight the importance of modularity, separating content from presentation, and emphasize the tool’s relevance for creating interactive, adaptable educational resources. The discussion also touches on PreTeXt’s integration with other tools like STACK and the broader vision of combining multiple open-source technologies to address diverse educational needs.

    216 – The Five Quiz Framework for Electronic Assessment

    Santiago and David discuss the innovative “five quiz” model – an educational framework designed to improve student learning outcomes. Conceived during the pandemic, this model includes five types of quizzes: prerequisites, instructional, mastery, testing, and extension quizzes. Santiago and David explore how this framework, originally conceptualised for online courses, addresses various educational contexts and learning needs, from low-resource environments to high-resource institutions like Caltech.

    215 – The History of Computer Assisted Statistics Textbooks

    Lily and David Stern discuss the history and impact of Computer Assisted Statistics Textbooks (CAST), developed by New Zealand lecturer Doug Sterling. The discussion highlights the interactive and assessment-driven nature of CAST, recounting how its use in Kenyan classrooms led to significant improvements in student performance. They reflect on the technological challenges that led to CAST’s decline and extract key lessons for designing sustainable educational resources.

    214 – Teaching Statistics from the Data Up

    What happens if statistics teaching starts from data rather than methods? In this episode, Lily and David explore the idea that statistics education should prioritise data analysis over traditional methods-first approaches, discussing the benefits and challenges of this paradigm shift. Highlighting examples from New Zealand’s education system and their own experiences, they argue that a data-first approach can provide more practical and widely applicable skills for students, despite the structural challenges it may pose.

    213 – STACK in Africa

    For those unfamiliar with STACK, consider searching the podcast backlog for previous episodes on the subject. In this episode, Santiago and David discuss the latest developments with STACK in Africa. They highlight various recent developments, including: tailored data course trainings in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali; the inaugural African official STACK conference set for 2026 in Kenya; the establishment of an African STACK Center at Masinde Muliro University; impressive outcomes from the use of STACK in Kenyan schools and technical colleges; the new PreTeXt textbook initiative for Ethiopian universities, impacting over 4,000 students; and additional efforts in Namibia, Tanzania, Somalia, and South Sudan.

    212 – Personalised AI-Driven Textbooks

    Michele Pancera and David Stern critically discuss a recent Google paper on AI-augmented textbooks. They consider the paper’s proposal of AI-generated personalised learning materials and how it compares to existing deterministic tools like STACK. The conversation highlights the differences between surface-level and deep personalisations, the importance of human involvement in AI processes, and the potential of AI in supporting teachers and enhancing education systems globally. They explore the vision of a customisable, community-driven textbook ecosystem that leverages AI to reduce educational inequalities while maintaining high-quality human interaction. Access the paper from Google here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.13348
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