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About

Sophie Bailey is the founder of The Edtech Podcast. Her previous role was as Head of Content at Bett, the world’s largest education technology event and prior to that, she enjoyed a ten-year career in tech events including at Informa Telecoms and Media (the founders of the Mobile World Congress). In 2016, she left her role to launch The Edtech Podcast and to consult on strategic content partnerships under the name ‘Tangential Brain’.

The mission statement of The Edtech Podcast is to improve the dialogue between ‘ed’ and ‘tech’ through storytelling, for better innovation and impact. The podcast audience consists of education leaders from around the world, plus startups, learning and development specialists, blue-chips, investors, Government and media. The Edtech Podcast is downloaded 2000 – 3000 times each week from 145 countries in total, with the U.S, U.K & Australia the top 3 downloading countries. The Edtech Podcast recently celebrated five years and 200+ episodes published. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the podcast reached 40k downloads a month as listeners grapple with all things remote learning and working. 

Podcast series have included Future Tech for EducationEducation 4.0What Matters in EdtechThe VocTech Podcast: Learning Continuedand The Edge. Topics covered in the interview format style show include education and artificial intelligence, games-based learning, assessment without tests, and scaling learning to those who cannot access traditional “bricks and mortar” teaching and learning.
 
The Edtech Podcast also convenes its audience through events, written series, and online community. Previously, The Edtech Podcast Festival brought together over 200 listeners from around the world to meet in the Olympic Park, London with the resultant The Edtech Podcast LIVE stage now spinning off in its own right. 
 
Sophie has spoken and moderated at a variety of events including SXSWEDU, Yidan Education Prize, ASU GSV Summit, and the Next Billion Edtech Summit. She is an industry mentor and advisor, including to the UCL Knowledge Lab initiative EDUCATE, and a Reimagine Education, GESA Awards, Bett Awards and XPrize Adult Literacy judge, as well as previous Edtech50, Edtech I.T in Higher Education Influencer 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 lives in 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.

Consultancy

I work with clients in the following areas:

  • Advisor/Non-Exec
  • Stakeholder management and partnerships
  • Research analysis and strategy development
  • Audience and community engagement
  • Cross-discipline in sales/marketing/content
  • International experience and product launch
  • Team leading and motivation
  • Events, content marketing, and PR.

I’d love to hear from you on your project big or small. If I can’t help, maybe I know someone who can.

Testimonials

Here are some of the nice things people have said about me. (I am very lucky).

 

‘Sophie is a dependable, can-do, creative and professional person to work with. No challenge is too big, no issue to complex and the end results are always very high quality.’

 

 

Peter Sigrist
Head of Communications at TES Global Limited

‘We recently commissioned Sophie to advise us about the EdTech market place.
Not only is she delightful personally but she has a great networks of contacts and comprehensive insight into the issues and trends in EdTech. I spent a very stimulating afternoon with Sophie and her followup has been extensive. Thank you Sophie!’

Meriel Winwood
Director at Ascent IT Ltd & Enterprise Asset Management Solutions

‘Sophie is a super connected and super smart operator in the EdTech space and provided some brilliant consultancy to us at Zzish. She also has an awesome podcast that drove some great interest in our business. I highly recommend working with her!’

 

Charles Wiles
Founder and CEO at Zzish. EdTech Angel Investor and Mentor