AI Series 2.0 #1: Maggie Philbin, Founder and Director of TeenTech: Educating ‘Tomorrow’s World’ of STEM entrepreneurs

34:47What do you think the impact that generative AI is going to have on the education sector, especially in relation to assessment, you know, and how we examine, you know, exams and coursework and so on and so forth, how we assess students? What's the impact going to be, do you think, over the next, say, five to 10 years? I think what we will hopefully see are some of the tasks that teachers have to dedicate a lot of time to at the moment in terms of some of the grading and marking of work, being able to personalise some of the learning to suit a student. Some of the admin tasks will be lifted from the teacher.

35:36It has to be done in a very, obviously, a very ethical way. And I think teachers need to be careful, obviously, and I'm sure they will be, about the use of data and making sure that things are anonymized and not being inappropriately used to train systems. I think there's a way to go on all of this. But I do think that some of the heavy lifting will be done. I think it would be great to see if personalized learning and support can be really developed, you know, so you can get encouraging nudges from an AI system that sort of go, ah, now that's a really great opening to, I don't know, could be a history essay or whatever.

36:31But are you really sure that Bismarck did that? Shall we just check? So that there's a little bit of nudging that could support the student. And that, I think, would be really good. And then, you know, in the whole area of SEND, special needs education, I think there's potential for AI to make a real difference. Yeah. I think there's a way to go in terms of, you know, making sure that it works well for everyone and works fairly. And there's also openness with both the student and the parents when AI is being used, whether AI is being used to produce school reports, etc. The human eye has to be going over things as well.

37:21Yeah, there has to be a human layer on most things at the moment, doesn't there? Absolutely. What I would hope is that this removes a chunk of the teacher's and the learner's time so that real learning can take place, which is more appropriate for the world that we're living in now. And, you know, we do need fresh thinking to tackle some of the major global issues that we have. It needs to be fairer so that the thinking isn't always coming from those with vested interest. So it's not always coming from those with a vested interest in particular technologies or solutions, that it is coming more equitably.

38:05inequitably, we're drawing from a wider and bigger pond. So I think there is potential. It's like potential with caution. AI, it's used in, say, grade prediction, for instance. There are all sorts of potentials for that to go astray. Number one, if the data it's being based on isn't sound, number one, but also, as you say, the human element. So I know with my own daughter, her predicted grades for GCSE were not brilliant. But when she realized this was going to have an impact in what was going to happen next, she sorted herself out. And she did the same thing at university. But if you just relied on an AI predicting, this is what you will achieve.

38:59The AI is only as good as the data, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. And I was just going to actually extract that word rely to ask you another question about the way we think about young people interacting with AI in particular. relying on a source as a source of truth and developing those critical thinking skills being able to unpack what may or may not be a deep fake and also thinking about the environmental impacts of AI these are all other very rich potential territories aren't they for how AI can be used in the educational system and you talked about critical thinking as one of the qualities that's what you referenced a little bit earlier in the conversation so I wondered if you could say a little bit about how you see as course content, some of the uses of AI coming to bear in the education system?

39:51Well, I mean, in terms of encouraging really astute, deep and critical thinking, it can be used across any subject area. Because we've seen all sorts of things, haven't we? So for instance, the way many of us were taught history, and we're taught history from the perspective, actually, frequently of British colonialism. Yeah, and very biased sources. Absolutely. You know, it's not just about using AI in terms of, right, is this piece of news real or not? Though I think that it's really important that young people cannot, in fact, that all of us can unpack those untruths. It'd be interesting, actually, if there are ways for for AI to unpack some of the ways political parties sell themselves to us.

40:47When promises are made, how easy would it be to go, well, this is ridiculous. We would like that promise to come true, but we know you're highly unlikely to achieve it, or it can only be achieved at the expense of whatever. I can imagine it would be the most incredible engagement tool to be able to have conversations with a historical figure to find out more about them. So you mentioned Einstein earlier. I'd love to have a chat with Einstein. And some of the tech now allows you to do that. Wouldn't that be a wonderful way of helping young people who may not like more traditional ways of learning just actually be able to do it on their terms, be able to have a chat, being able to have a text exchange or whatever it is, or be able to do a snap exchange, something like that, using the power of tech to be able to engage and learn through completely alternative means.

41:44Absolutely, Quenza, because it brings certain things to life. I think what we've probably within education ignored for far too long is that people do learn in very, very different ways. and some people need to learn the hard way with a lot of things some students are very visual some students are you know will learn like like my my daughter when she's revising she would always have loud music on I I've got no idea how on earth you know because I couldn't learn like that but she that was really important to her others are kinetic learners and as you say having those very powerful encounters. You know, it's a different way, a different approach.

42:30And the key thing really is what the AI systems, where they are drawing their information and their data from, they're getting better, but they're not always one, by any structure's imagination, 100 % correct. Yes. Can I ask you about jobs displacement, Maggie, and how you think this is going to play out and there's a lot of uh sort of uh dystopian rhetoric out there and and predictions and things about you know millions of jobs being replaced in the next couple of years i think it's probably going to be quite more gradual than that and i think um jobs have been replaced by technology since the dawn of time so there's nothing nothing's changed there but this may happen at a speed that we have not seen before what what do you what do you think about that and what new vocational directions do you think will emerge over the next couple of years What type of jobs do you think will be created as a result of the emergence of generative AI?

43:27There will be job displacement. And we're seeing it already. I think it's already happening, isn't it? I've seen some recently. We're seeing it within journalism. But equally, as the technology develops, the thing that we constantly see with tech is new roles emerging. But those new roles, they do demand higher level skills. And that's why, coming back to what I was saying earlier about how important it is that we rethink what's happening in schools is very important, because it's not just about lots of facts and, you know, taking on lots of sort of factual learning, but it is about that being able to discriminate the, you know, how likely is this to be right, how unlikely is this to be right and then having an ability to be sort of a creative and quite a bold thinker and an imaginative thinker about what might we do next and at the moment the thing that worries me is that within education we're not giving the majority of students the space to be able to develop those skills um yeah you know so so yes i think the world of jobs will change and and as you say you know we're seeing it across all areas you know at one time if you were running a business you know you had a you know bookkeepers and everything well now you've got apps which are doing this for you yeah so there's there is this displacement but now of course people are building those apps and those systems.

45:04So that is a new range of activity. But yeah, I've got an example of that. Actually, the other day, I asked the other day, it was a couple of weeks ago, I created a very basic website for my wife's business. I have no idea to code or, you know, I'm not technical in that respect. But I use this AI platform and knocked up a website for her in probably 20 minutes. I could have done it a lot quicker, but it was probably, you know, if I was better at it. But what I'm saying is, is that things like creating websites, you know, a couple of years ago, that wouldn't have been available, I would have had to have gone to a web developer, even for a basic one or two or three page website.

45:40Now I can knock it up in no time. I mean, there is really good quality as well. It's unbelievable what's available. That's a basic example. But what's that going to be like in 10 years, I'm potentially going to be able to go on to a large language model and create a crm system a piece of software so i don't i no longer need this sas product i'm playing a lot of money for that's going to change a lot of things as people get more it's not even the technology is pretty much there but it's people interacting with the technology for really you know for big you know sort of outcomes like that for beneficial outcomes like creating a crm system that's when i think we're going to start to see enormous change.

46:22The SaaS industry is bound to get hit with this. People are creating games for themselves on large language models and hosting it, you know, and then they own that IP, you know, so they don't need to purchase games. I mean, you know, this is only going to get more sophisticated. It's going to be interesting to see what the impact is on industries and subsequently on jobs and then subsequently on society. Do you see what I mean? To pick up on that, though, I think Technology has always been a remarkable disruptor of society. And in many ways, it can help make positive change. And in many ways, it can help make very difficult and challenging change.

47:01So I think it's about, you know, going back to what Maggie said at the start about ethics, it's about making sure that we've got the right guardrails in place, but also opening up our minds to the possibilities of that disruption. tech at its very best can be gloriously disruptive and for very, very positive societal good. I mean, I think we've already talked about some of the impacts AI could have on education. There's also whole sectors such as energy generation, such as healthcare, where AI could make remarkable differences. There's so many different sectors where just the use of AI-driven robotics can help speed up productivity in certain areas.

47:41What you often find through societies where there are uplifts and upsides in one area, there are downsides in another. And overall, it tends to balance out providing the right guardrails and ethics are there. But that's where, you know, making sure, and we saw in the sort of recent GCSE results. So there was disparity between North and South. Yes. And this is why sorting out that disparity is really important, because what we can learn from history is that where we have a sector where suddenly the jobs are no longer there. So, you know, whether it's the miners, whether it's the steel industry, the way you have a whole community which is dependent on those jobs, what we can see is then suddenly you're pitched into two generations of unemployment.

48:37And that, I think, is something that we need to be thinking about, is what are we going to do to make sure that in the brave new world where AI is supporting amazing healthcare systems, revolutionizing education, making, you know, sorting out all of the issues that we've got in terms of, you know, global warming and energy production. who is going to be having these jobs and you know it shouldn't just be going to the lucky the lucky few and I think that is a piece of learning that we're still catching up on really yeah well said I think that's something that we as a society and also government and public sector needs to incubate and keep an eye on that change so it's not too dramatic and it's not too it doesn't have too much of a detrimental effect on communities and societies and things.

49:31I think that's a big challenge coming up. But what I've been dying to ask you actually is, obviously, you've had an incredible career and you've obviously got a long way to go as well. But looking back now to that young lady who saw that advert, I just want to take you back to that moment when you started your career. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to that person? I wish I'd had a bit more confidence in myself. I would tell her to be much more confident and have a little bit more self-belief and to trust some of her own thinking. So many times, I don't do it so much now.

50:14I've sat in, whether it's a meeting, thinking, oh gosh, all of these people, they know far more than I do. And actually thinking something quite different to what's going on in the room and thinking oh well maybe I'm just being really stupid by not but now I will ask that question and I don't care if they think I'm stupid I will ask those questions but I just wish I'd been able to do that a little bit earlier really so that's what I would say. We asked that question to we've had a hundred over a hundred guests now on this podcast and that a version of that has come up many times is just having the courage to ask almost childlike curious questions regardless of what people think and as being a regret you know because if you don't ask them questions earlier on in your career because you you think you're going to sound stupid or whatever it is going on in your head Maggie if you could have invented any tech that currently we're using in the world today what is the piece of tech you wish you could have invented I love that oh I've got you know like a piece of tech which has not been properly developed or invented that I wish was.

51:21Even better. What I would really like is I look out, I live on a London street, little Victorian houses, cars parked along this road. And I look at old pictures of that street. Obviously, it looked very different in the 1800s, 1900s. And I really wish you could just go, right, I'm going to go over and see Gareth today. And I just click on my mobile phone. And then there is something outside my house that transports me to Gareth easily and effectively. I don't think self-driving cars are the answer. I don't know what this piece of technology would be. teleporting why do we not have this that would be fantastic because i'd love to get rid of cars everywhere i know this won't make me very popular with car manufacturers love to get rid of them all i'd love transportation to be easy and also for it to be easy for everybody some of my friends have got disabilities they can't use the tube it's ridiculous one person who was a Paralympic dressage rider, said it was easier to get her and her horse over to the Olympics than getting herself from Maidenhead into town.

52:47She works with a tech company because that is ridiculously hard. And so, yeah, so an amazing transport system. Teleportation would do it that got rid of all of the cars sitting in my road. Brilliant stuff. Brilliant. Maybe we need to throw in a little bit of chemistry as well. I got to ask you, what is the most ridiculous thing you saw on Tomorrow's World, which completely didn't work because it was just bizarre? Oh, gosh. I'm sure you had a few. I remember there was quite a few wacky things on Tomorrow's World, wasn't there? One of the funny things about Tomorrow's World was sometimes the way the research was conducted.

53:27So we had universities coming to us with all sorts of extraordinary developments. We had big companies like Sony going, hey, look at this new thing. It's called a compact disc. And then we had inventors. And the inventors, a lot of the inventors, invented things that did more than one thing. I actually had a real soft spot for some of those items. So you had inventors who went, well, look at this ironing board. But guess what? It converts into a rowing machine. or etc a rowing machine how random is that I promise you that we had these things and then we would demonstrate them and I remember someone bringing in some kind of a giz I can't remember what it was it was very along those lines where it was one thing that converted into something totally unrelated and then a third thing and he came into the office to demonstrate this piece of kit took it apart never got it back together again and so it was yeah and I as I say I had a real a very much a soft spot for that and then one of the other ways that we got items on tomorrow's work was because people had interests in particular areas one of which seemed to be skiing I mean I can't ski But we did endless items about heated ski poles, one of which I think set off the fire alarms in the studio when we were rehearsing.

55:05And obviously you had things where the tech, for whatever reason, malfunctioned. Sometimes down to us, it has to be said. Like we had a gizmo that it was a way of painting lampposts. so this thing was attached to the bottom of a lamppost filled with paint and then it whizzed up the lamppost like that worked perfectly and then richard rice in the gallery just before the after the last rehearsal said a bit of a problem with this because we're doing this demonstration and essentially what we're doing is painting a gray lamppost gray and we can't see it so we need a different color paint and the producer tried to explain but the thing is this is special paint for this thing and and richard was having none of it so the paint was changed to a different color and then completely malfunctioned and it went nuts and it painted it stripy it was going up and down the lamp so so and that was our doing it was nothing and the poor That was on camera, was it?

56:13Oh, yes. It was a live show. And the thing was, we kept going back. Of course it was, yeah. Right, well, let's go back to Peter with his lamppost. And then it would malfunction again. And it was a particular show that stands out in our memory because everything went wrong. Howard was demonstrating a tomato sorting machine that could tell the difference between 100 different shades of tomatoes and as he set it up you kind of well it's you knew what was going to happen why and yeah well it was it's very important if you're dealing with tomatoes to have a machine like this that understands the level of ripeness and everything anyway green tomatoes and red tomatoes were coming down the same chute um yeah so yeah that was but that was why that was something and i'd learned it from my days on swap shop actually and it's still applied on tomorrow's world because those moments were the ones that if you were watching the show you'd go come in here yeah that's what we did at institution was things like that wasn't it because it was it had that sort of live so anything can happen like that because you're dealing with such wacky products but also you'd see something you were really impressed by and is something you talk about in work the next day.

57:37Did you see that thing on Tomorrow's World? Imagine if that's going to happen in the future, that type of thing. So it was just, it was loads of talking points as a result of it. And that's why it became so iconic, I think. But yeah, that's brilliant. Thank you so much, Maggie. It's been an absolute honour and privilege. I really enjoyed chatting to you and yourself, Carenza, as well. It's been really, really great. Oh, it's been fantastic. Thank you. Thank you, Maggie. Thanks, Gary. No, no, it's lovely to chat to you. And here's to the future. Here's to the future. Tomorrow's world. So where can people find you, Maggie?

58:12And are you active on any platforms or anything? And where can they find out more about Teentech? Yeah, Teentech, you can find on teentech.com. And I'm on Twitter, but like everyone taking it, and I will always call it that, by the way, I cannot do the exit. But like everyone, I use it less and less. I'm there. So if people reach out to me, I'm there. and you can reach out to me on LinkedIn and do connect because it's always great to understand about innovations that are happening if you happen to be involved in them. And obviously, if you want to help us with our team tech mission, there's shed loads of help that we need.

58:51Oh, brilliant. Okay, well, I will certainly check that out. But yeah, thanks for coming on the Tech Leaders Podcast. Corenza really enjoyed that. She's just a treat, isn't she? I think I alluded to just off camera, but we really lit a flame in her at the end, didn't we, when she was talking about technology and education, but also the evolution of the curriculum and how we need to align the education system a little bit better with the way the jobs market is evolving. I thought that was fantastic. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, this is a person who she spent her whole life helping people understand things.

59:28And she was originally doing that in television and having a lot of fun with it. and now she's doing it as her career helping young people understand stuff and also helping teachers and also helping people in the educational system bottom up but this is something that she has dedicated her whole life to and she's wonderful at it she sort of lights flames in others for a living um so it was very satisfying that we were able to light that spark in her as well yeah it's always a pleasure to talk to somebody who's as passionate as Maggie and especially when they've dedicated her life's work to what they're passionate about.

1:00:01I love that sort of helping young people for Tomorrow's World, the play on the fact that she was obviously a very successful presenter of Tomorrow's World. And just to quickly pick up on that as well, I mean, the story of how she got into television was fantastic. So, yeah, great prompt, great insider knowledge on that. That was a real treat for the listeners. But also, I love the, you know, just the sort of inside story on the way that Tomorrow's World worked and stuff like that. It's such a culturally iconic production. But I think it really did relate to the main point as well, which is generative AI is the latest iteration of technology innovation.

1:00:40And Maggie just basically, she pointed out that this is the real deal. This is going to change a lot of things in the jobs market, in the education system, and so many other facets of society and business. I was quite pleased to hear how positive Maggie was about that. There's a lot of dystopian sort of predictions out there about this. But Maggie seemed quite calm and sees it as just another iteration of technology evolution. New jobs will be created. Opportunity will be created. And, you know, we're in good hands, you know, type thing. And that was very reassuring. Yes, and particularly if the younger generations are growing up with an eye on ethics and preserving the planet and doing things with kindness and doing things with the right kind of elimination of biases and so forth.

1:01:32And I really liked her emphasis on making sure that technology at its best makes sure that nobody is left behind. And I think she's working really hard to help make sure that that is the case. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And Team Tech seemed to be doing great things. I mean, I can totally see it completely aligns with Maggie's character. I think her involvement in an organization like that is very unsurprising. Have you had any experience interacting with that organization yourself, Karinza? I actually, I have. In fact, this is my 10th year of being involved. And I would really suggest anyone listening who works in a corporate that wants to kind of have a link into tomorrow's pipeline of talent, get involved with Team Tech.

1:02:18It has been an enriching experience for my life. So I worked with them when I was at BBC. I worked with them when I was at the Royal Household based at Buckingham Palace. And I worked with them when I was at BT. And I'm continuing to work with them now. I think it's a wonderful way of giving something back. You can help in lots of different ways. I've been a mentor for some of the young people. I've also been a judge in the competitions. And I've also, through various things, I've helped create sponsorship agreements as well. Because, of course, it's a charity. It doesn't run on air. you know you do you do need funding and they work with a range of amazing companies and and i think anyone listening today i mean i'd really encourage you to look it up because it's it's a wonderful way of getting your company properly involved with the future generation and and helping helping shape them and helping spark confidence and inspiration in the young people of of today for tomorrow's world i for one will be checking some of the stuff out that you mentioned there and i'm I'm sure some of the listeners will be too.

1:03:20And another thing that I think was a really great point by Maggie is just that having that, and this is obviously just more of a thing for younger people coming into the jobs market, or actually it's applicable to people at all stages of their career, but it's about having the confidence, and in some cases bravery, to be authentic, to be yourself, to ask the questions that come natural to you in an environment where you could be perceived as, you know, oh that's a stupid question no ask the questions you need to ask to get what you need to get to get yourself up to speed I think that's something it's quite refreshing to you Maggie say that that is essentially her biggest regret from her early career is not having the confidence to be like that I think that was a big big lesson and I think all of us in our dealings with young people should help them feel okay about asking things that they don't understand or asking clarifying questions and just not being afraid to put themselves out there a little bit because it is only by experimenting in a whole different way different set of ways that you can advance your own learning and you can advance innovation experimentation is the key to all of that and I I sometimes ask questions that might be perceived to be silly in fact I was in a board meeting yesterday.

1:04:39And I asked a question, which I prefaced, forgive my ignorance. And I thought to myself afterwards, why am I giving myself that caveat? I should even now at my age, with all my experience, I should be able to just confidently ask the question and not worry about what people think. So I still try to get better myself. And I think we can all encourage younger people going through school and apprentices and through university, but also younger people in in the environments in which we work. You know, just reach out to them, make sure that they know it's okay. I can't ever remember in my whole life thinking someone was silly for a question they ask.

1:05:16And I'm pretty sure most people would never think that you're silly because you're asking a particular question or that you didn't know a particular thing. It's completely okay not to know everything. Of course, 100%, 100 % agree. But what a great way to start this series, Carenza. We've got some amazing guests lined up. We won't let the cat out of the bag just yet. It'll get announced on social media soon. But I think, yeah, we've got some fantastic guests lined up. Maggie has kicked us off. We have got guests on in senior leadership roles within some of the world's most recognizable business brands on their journey in terms of implementing AI within businesses and job creation and so on and so forth.

1:06:01So really excited about the rest of this generative AI series. Really excited to be working with you again, Carenza. Thank you. So it's going to be a busy couple of weeks. So yeah, but thank you so much for joining us. I look forward to you hopefully joining us in the next episode of the Tech Leaders Podcast. Fantastic. And I'm looking forward to helping you get to the next 200. Thank you, Carenza.

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