Introduce yourself in three words or phrases.

Fire-breathing dad and innovator.

What do you like most about your job?

Getting to change the world and think outside the box/sail uncharted waters.

If you could learn a language instantly, which would you pick and why?

Mandarin. It would be super useful to be able to communicate in more detail with our talented engineering team and explore new markets.

Best/Worst work trip?

The best was a weekend in El Salvador, while the worst was recently when a smartphone was left in the back of an Uber.

What makes you get up in the morning?

The kids, to get them to school. Beyond that, I thrive on challenges and getting to design solutions – something we have plenty of time for at KEATH!

Champion/cheerleader which we should all follow and why?

Helen Crompton, who is doing great AI research, and Mira Murati, the former CTO of OpenAI and founder of Thinking Machines Lab.

Best international ed conference and why?

Grew up professionally going to VetEd, then AMEE, and more recently D2L Fusion (as that’s the VLE used by the University of Surrey). All are great places to share and learn.

Worst conference food/beverage experience?

A recent conference where we were served pretty dry falafel for lunch three days in a row

Book or podcast recommendation for others in the sector?

I love a good book that challenges your mindset, and for me, that’s Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed. The core idea is that we should embrace mistakes and failures as a vital source of learning and innovation, which is so important for our sector. It’s all about creating a culture where we learn from what goes wrong, rather than trying to bury it.

On the podcast side, I’m keen on Edufuturists, as I recently went to an amazing event of theirs.

Describe a project or initiative you are currently working on that excites you.

I’d say the work we’re doing with our charity partner, TuLIP (The Turing Learning Initiative for AI Proficiency). We refer to it as the ‘IELTS of AI’ because its mission is to establish the first global, measurable benchmark for AI competency.

The thrilling part is it’s leveraging our AI infrastructure to create dynamic assessments that accurately measure practical AI skills (students can receive UCAS credit points, too). This isn’t theoretical; it’s already gaining significant traction internationally, evidenced by their recent, promising partnership with Alibaba in China.