Podcast: The IDEMS Podcast

Michele and David explore how comparing IDEMS with Palantir can help explain IDEMS’ technological vision. They discuss how both organisations seek to solve complex problems of data interoperability, but with fundamentally different approaches to ownership and control. They also reflect on how recent advances in AI are making IDEMS’ vision of connected technologies with distributed…

Santiago and David discuss why IDEMS was established as a Community Interest Company (CIC), rather than a charity or a conventional for-profit business. They explain how the combination of being a CIC, limited by guarantee and not-for-profit allows IDEMS to pursue commercial opportunities while protecting its social mission. They also explore the wider potential of…

Continuing their reflections on 20 years of research methods support, Lily and David explore the challenges of measuring profitability in smallholder farming. Through an example from agricultural research in West Africa, they discuss how conventional economic measures can overlook the value of community activities, why the way labour is valued matters, and how misleading profitability…

George and David reflect on the journey behind IDEMS’ first patent, from recognising the potential of their ideas to navigating the challenges of turning them into a patent application. They discuss how the process helped them identify and refine what was genuinely innovative, the value of working with patent attorneys, and what they learned about…

Continuing their reflections on 20 years of research methods support, Lily and David explore the value of observational studies in understanding complex systems. Through examples from agricultural research in West Africa, they discuss how looking beyond experiments and surveys can reveal the hows and whys behind people’s choices, generating insights and research questions that might…

For the 300th episode of the IDEMS Podcast, David and Kate discuss IDEMS’ first patent and the ideas behind it. They explore how rethinking some of the foundations of how technology is built could make it easier to reuse and adapt across different contexts, and how AI is creating new possibilities for technology that can…

David and Kate make the case for funding IDEMS as it takes its technology and innovation to the next stage. They explain why building a different digital future requires alternatives to conventional models of technology and investment, and invite people to help fund an approach that puts social impact, distributed ownership and long-term mission at…

Michele and David explore two different approaches to building AI systems: tools that enable experts to work faster and more effectively, and tools designed to help more people develop and apply expertise. Drawing on Michele’s work building multi-agent systems for STACK, they discuss how AI can remove technical barriers while keeping human knowledge, judgement and…

Lily and David reflect on a new world map that reveals just how much larger Africa is than conventional maps make it appear. They explore why familiar maps distort the size of countries and continents, the mathematics behind different map projections, and why representing Africa at its true scale matters for how we see and…