#259 – Outside Thinking, Innovation & Learning

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What’s in this episode?
Hello everyone and welcome back to The Edtech Podcast, where we aim to improve the dialogue between “ed” and “tech” for better innovation and impact.
In this series, sponsored by WorkTripp, we are looking at all things Future of Work, and how that intersects with learning, leadership, humans, and technology.
In this episode, I’m chatting with author and founder Garry Pratt. We explore:
- The foundations of entrepreneurialism
- The evolution of edtech (and the internet)
- The science behind outdoor time, creativity and innovation (for entrepreneurs & educators)
People
Garry Pratt, author and founder
Garry Pratt is the co-founder of Earswitch, an innovative sensor technology start-up and was previously Entrepreneur in Residence and a Teaching Fellow in Entrepreneurship at the University of Bath. In this role, he ran an accelerator programme that supported high-tech, high-growth potential digital start-ups and scale-ups in areas such as med-tech, AR/VR and AI, through which he mentored, advised and trained over 100 founders. Garry is also the co-founder of the Outside/community and Walking Leaders, where he serves mentor, facilitator and guide on walking expeditions intended to cultivate creative and outside thinking in business leaders, teams and entrepreneurs. Garry previously held senior positions in the pre-dotcom tech world across the US and Europe, co-founded a chain of specialist cookshops before co-founding Teachit, a leading educational digital content provider which he exited in 2011.
Some potted and relevant history:
- My 50’s: Doing this! Studying creative entrepreneurship. NED for exciting start and scale-ups. Entrepreneur-in-Residence at University of Bath running an accelerator programme for digital start-ups.
- My 40’s: Scaling and then selling Teachit. Running a boutique management consultancy. Masters and Research Fellow at University of Bristol.
- My 30’s: Co-founded an innovative chain of specialist cookshops that eventually had 42 sites, and co-founded Teachit, one of the early and fastest growing innovators in online education.
- My 20’s: Director of International Advertising of a $1.5BN US company that made 14 acquisitions across Europe, managing a sales operation generating over $50M in revenue.
Sophie Bailey
Sophie is the founder of the iTunes new and noteworthy, The Edtech Podcast. The mission of The Edtech Podcast is to improve the dialogue between ‘ed’ and ‘tech’ for better innovation, through storytelling. The podcast is downloaded from over 145 countries with the UK, US & Aus in the top 3. Sophie has spoken and moderated at a variety of events including SXSW EDU, Yidan Education Prize, ASU GSV Summit, and the Next Billion Edtech Summit. She is an industry mentor and advisor, a Reimagine Education, GESA Awards, Bett Awards and XPrize Adult Literacy judge, and previous Edtech50 and Edtech Digest winner.
Sophie is passionate about lifelong and everyday learning. If she’s not interviewing a University Vice-Chancellor, Edtech Investor, School Leader, or StartUp about education innovation, she’s engrossed in Teach Your Monster to Read or wrestling her lockdown baby. A keen cyclist, she has recently relocated to West Devon which she considers the English version of the Pyrenees. She is very lucky to work with a distributed team on The Edtech Podcast. She is now building WorkTripp.
Quotes from this episode
Coming soon!
References from this week’s episode
Thank you to WorkTripp
The Future of Work Series is produced by The Edtech Podcast and supported by WorkTripp

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