The IDEMS Podcast

IDEMS has big ambitions, including to become redundant in our Research Methods Support (RMS) work for the Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems. David and Lucie discuss the ongoing RMS internship program in West Africa and how, through the program, we can expand and increase our impact in the region.

In this episode, Santiago Borio and David Stern explore the journey of transforming maths education in Africa through STACK internships. They discuss how former team members, now PhD students, and local talents leveraged STACK, an open-source tool, to innovate teaching methods. They highlight the initial challenges of training interns virtually, the pivotal role of face-to-face interaction, and the interns' substantial contributions to the STACK community, particularly at the first African STACK

This episode features a conversation between Dr Lily Clements and David Stern on the influence of misinformation, initially focussing on the tobacco industry's attempts to distort statistics related to smoking and health. They discuss the historical context of smoking promotion, the transition to recognising its health risks, and the broader implications for responsible AI and the fight against pseudoscience.

A simple question, but not such an easy answer. Starting from their observations of street vendors and students in Burkina Faso and Niger, David and Lucie discuss what development could look like in this context. How does development in Niger, for example, compare to the developments needed in the UK?

In this follow-up to episode 035, Lily and David consider a recent development in the realm of AI image generation: Google’s Gemini model recently came under criticism for generating historically inaccurate images, seemingly as a result of overcorrecting for racial biases. They discuss topics including: how making mistakes can show that Google might be ahead of the competition; new AI regulations from the EU; Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI; and the infamous Glasgow Willy Wonka experience.Read

This episode is a follow-up to episodes 033 and 034, which were a conversation between Santiago and David on IDEMS’ vision and mission. Here, Danny and David respond to that discussion, further explicating how they view the vision and mission and taking a critical look at their current formulations.

Lily and David discuss the challenges of using AI to generate images, highlighting biases observed in the results – in particular, regarding race and gender. They discuss the importance of recognising and addressing these biases, proposing solutions such as creating specific guidelines for using AI tools ethically and advocating for diversity in AI development.