How do we reach our potential in work and life? The Inside Learning podcast explores the science of learning and the future of work with expert guest speakers and research-based insights from The Learnovate Centre in Trinity College Dublin, a global research centre focused on learning technology. Hosted by author and consultant Aidan McCullen.
Get in touch: info@learnovatecentre.org / https://www.learnovatecentre.org
Why We Still Need to Pick Up a Pencil in the Age of AI with Nick Sousanis
**Why We Still Need to Pick Up a Pencil in the Age of AI | Nick Sousanis (The Unflattening)**
Nick Sousanis drew his PhD. His Teachers College Columbia dissertation was made entirely in comics and later published by Harvard University Press as The Unflattening. An Eisner Award winning comics artist and professor at San Francisco State University, Nick joins Aidan to make the case for drawing as a way of thinking, and for staying with the slow, scrappy struggle that AI tools now let us skip.
Nick tells the story of a class whose textbooks never arrived, and how he caught himself apologising to students who had in fact been learning plenty through making and play. That moment shaped his teaching mantra of study and play. The conversation moves through doodling and retention, productive failure, Rancière’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster, and why tight constraints so often release creativity. Nick also explains why copying and tracing can sharpen analysis, and shares his ongoing work to make comics accessible to blind and low-vision readers.
Find Nick at https://spinweaveandcut.com
Nick’s books on Amazon.ie https://www.amazon.ie/s?k=Nick+Sousanis
Inside Learning is brought to you by the Learnovate Centre in Trinity College Dublin, funded by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. Find out more at https://learnovatecentre.org
One push back on the title. The pipe and parenthetical work on YouTube, but Apple truncates long episode titles in most views, so ”Why We Still Need to Pick Up a Pencil in the Age of AI with Nick Sousanis” may display better there. Your call.
31 Aug 2026
Waqas Ahmed — Is Specialisation Over? Cognitive Flexibility and Polymathy in the Age of AI
Cognitive flexibility is a top workplace skill, says the WEF. Waqas Ahmed, author of The Polymath, explains why outsourcing thinking to AI erodes it.
Waqas defines cognitive flexibility as both the ability to shift between domains and a higher-order capacity to handle complex, ill-structured problems, and argues versatility, not agility, is the skill that survives accelerating change. He and Aidan McCullen trace how we built today’s silo culture, why transformation projects fail because of it, and the two polymath competencies he develops in organisations: versatility and integration. He also explains why current LLMs converge on safe, average answers, and how his Da Vinci AI project aims to provoke divergent, human-led creativity instead.
Inside Learning, hosted by Irish Keynote Speaker Aidan McCullen, explores learning science and the future of work, and is produced by Learnovate.
Subscribe to Inside Learning wherever you listen.
30 Jun 2026
Fiona Passantino — Why HR Must Lead AI Integration: AI Literacy, Training & the Human-Led Roadmap
AI isn’t a tool — it’s a new kind of employee. Fiona Passantino explains why AI integration belongs to HR, not IT.
Award-winning author of AI-Powered Leader and creator of the AI Integration Roadmap, Fiona makes the case that failed AI adoption is usually a training, governance, and leadership gap — not ”resistance.” With Aidan McCullen she covers mapping your adoption curve, baseline AI literacy and the EU AI Act, turning early adopters into a coaching centre of excellence, bringing ”hell no” holdouts over the line without splitting the organisation, phased L&D for departments and desk-less workers, and her ostrich-to-eagle roadmap for joyful, human-led AI.
Inside Learning, hosted by Aidan McCullen, explores learning science and the future of work, and is produced by Learnovate.
Subscribe to Inside Learning wherever you listen.
Who has been a guest on Inside Learning | Unlocking human potential
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Sean Darcy
Sangeet Paul Choudary
Manu Kapur
Julie Dirksen
Dr Helena Boschi
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
8 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 31 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
35
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
68
Contact Inside Learning | Unlocking human potential
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[Host Name] and Aidan McCullen host the show. Published by The Learnovate Centre, Trinity College Dublin.
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