Podcast: The IDEMS Podcast

David Stern interviews Polly Noyce about the history and impact of Manor House, a Kenyan institution focused on teaching sustainable agriculture to smallholder farmers. Polly shares her experiences starting the project in the 1980s and the transformations it has undergone over the past 40 years. They discuss the importance of agroecology and how contemporary technologies…

Can AI-generated information be trusted? In this episode, Lily and David dive into the issue of AI-generated “hallucitations”, where generative AI models like ChatGPT provide ostensible citations referring to sources that do not exist. They discuss the implications of such misinformation, including defamation cases. They emphasize the importance of responsible AI systems and the challenges…

In episode “061 – Simplicity versus Complexity”, David claimed that if a problem is solvable by throwing money at it then it is not inherently complex or “wicked”. In this episode, Santiago challenges this claim via the thought experiment from another episode, “031 – Who Wants to be a Trillionaire”. This prompts a discussion that…

David talks to Chris Sangwin, creator of STACK, the online assessment system designed to support the teaching of university level mathematics. They review what makes STACK so useful and how they are collaborating on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership program. STACK presents huge opportunities to improve mathematical education at scale and Chris and David discuss how…

Open access software tools like ODK (Open Data Kit) have been a game changer in enabling access to digital data collection. Lucie and David discuss what makes ODK so interesting, and compare its development and use to that of R-Studio, another open access software that has made waves in data analysis. What will be the…

IDEMS works on complex, real world problems, but what does complexity mean? Lucie and David discuss the concepts of simplicity and complexity, with David suggesting that mathematics can be seen as a realm of simplicity compared to the complex real world. They touch on the dangers of oversimplifying problems and highlight how modern research tends…

In this episode, Lily and David consider foundational data skills in data science education. They discuss Lily’s recent teaching experience at the doctoral training school in Kigali, Rwanda, as part of the AIMS initiative. The conversation explores the significance of teaching basic yet essential data handling and analysis skills to data science students, emphasising how…

How do you get a project off to a good start? In IDEMS’ Research Methods Support work for the Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems (CRFS) in West Africa, we facilitate Inception Meetings to support projects make the right decisions. David and Lucie reflect on 9 CRFS projects’ joint Inception Meetings held in Mali, Niger…

We’re used to participatory research with farmers, but what does scalable participatory farmer-focused research look like? Lucie and David discuss this principled approach to agroecological research, which has the potential to not only create great benefits for researchers and farmers alike, but to also shake up research systems and power dynamics between researchers and the…

Santiago Borio and David Stern discuss STACK, an open-source online assessment tool for mathematics and STEM subjects. They explore how STACK can provide scalable and effective feedback across diverse educational settings, emphasizing its success in universities with large class sizes and limited resources, particularly in Kenya and other similar environments. They reflect on the value…