WHAT I'VE LEARNT

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Kishan Gopal (Tata literacy  Services)

With almost a million beneficiaries in 17 states of India the TATA adult literacy program is transformative.

The Adult Literacy Programme was set up to help the Government of India improve adult literacy rates, using the Computer Based Functional Literacy (CBFL) solution. Using the CBFL model, non-literate adult learners can achieve functional literacy (reading, writing, arithmetic) within 50 hours, over a period of three months, which is about 1/6th the time demanded by conventional learning methods. 

The CBFL software is available in nine Indian and three foreign languages. TCS fosters strategic partnerships with local governments, jail authorities, NGOs and other companies to enhance the reach.

The programme has a unique focus on women and adults from marginalized communities and has been extensively used by prison authorities as a reformation process for the inmates.

Kishan Gopal Laddha started his professional career with Tata Consultancy Services serving as design engineer with one of the world’s largest medical manufacturing company. Finding passion in serving, he joined the pioneering batch of Teach for India and taught as a primary teacher in low income schools in India’s largest slums for two years. He joined back TCS being the bridge between corporate and society and lead Corporate Social Responsibility for central, north and western India for TCS CSR. Over the period of years, he worked with lacs of non-neo literates and empowered them with self-respect, confidence and reliance. He heads TCS’ Literacy as a Service, that served 1.1 mn+ people (>80%) women across India and Burikna Faso. He is father of two daughters, Vipassana meditation practitioner and a volunteer at Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram.

Deborah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/what.ive.learnt/

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Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-ive-learnt/id153556330

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Hi, Welcome to the What I’ve Learnt podcast

I am Luke, one of the producers for the show. As a producer I live my work and helping Deborah and our team share so many wonderful stories.

From food to fashion and art to music we’ve got you covered.

With spring just around the corner, we wanted to highlight some amazing moments of the podcast from January and February.

This Episode Features

Rita Reichman: Australian born pianist began her performance career as a 3 year old child prodigy, having an extraordinary education, beginning with Jascha Spivakovsky and then at age 9 was invited to study at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.  Two years later she was accepted to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, as one of their youngest student, obtaining a Bachelors Degree at 17. This was followed by a Masters Degree from The Juilliard School in New York at 20.

She continues her international performance career as soloist , recording artist, chamber musician. and is in much demand to give master classes.


Dr Ginni Mansberg: a GP, well-known TV host as well as resident GP on Channel 7's Sunrise and The Morning Show. She is the author of the bestselling M Word: How to thrive in menopause. Ginni is on a mission to demystify health and wellbeing in midlife and beyond. She is a sought-after speaker and presenter in all forms of media. 

Ginni Recently released her book 'Save Your Brain' in February, In it she provides simple steps and proven strategies to reduce your risk of cognitive decline - before it's too late


Dr. Alison Thompson founded Third Wave Volunteers as a first responder on Sept 11th, 2001 in NYC which has grown to over 30,000 first responders worldwide. Alison has worked at the grassroots level in Sri Lanka, Haiti, Philippines, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia, Africa, Nepal, 12 USA hurricanes, Venezuela, The Bahamas,  the Syrian and Venezuelan Crisis and numerous other disasters around the world.

Alison talked from Miami before she embarked to the war zone of Ukraine followed by an urgent visit to Turkey after its earthquake in February of 2023.


Sophie Walker: Founder and creator of Australian Birth Stories Podcast.  Mother of 3 with a Masters in Public Health. 

Since the podcast launched, it’s had over 10 million total downloads (episodes now clock upwards of 30,000 downloads) and has shared over 350 women’s birthing stories with a waitlist of 5000 women who want to share their stories.

Endorsed by the Australian College of Midwives, the podcast is nationally recognised as an education tool and is used as certified professional development for student midwives across Australia.

Deborah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/what.ive.learnt/

Mind, Film and Publishing: https://www.mindfilmandpublishing.com/

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-ive-learnt/id153556330

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Kate Legge 

Three decades into her marriage, journalist Kate Legge discovered that her husband, the Maserati-driving media executive Greg Hywood, was cheating on her.

That was bad, but it gets worse.

Hywood – for many years chief executive at Fairfax, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and now the chairman of Free TV – admitted when confronted that he had been cheating on and off, with different women, pretty much since the wedding. One of the mistresses was one of Legge’s close friends, a fellow parent at her son’s school. She found out only because the other woman’s husband was threatening to blow the whistle.

Legge, 66, a vivacious and attractive writer, who for many years worked at The Weekend Australian Magazine, has now published a book about her experience. It’s called Infidelity and Other Affairs (Thames and Hudson) and it is not fiction. All of life is here’ … Kate Legge’s portrait of her marriage to Greg Hywood tells of love, infidelity, pain and healing

‘It was intensely painful, but even as I was going through it, I wondered if I’d one day write about it,’ says Kate Legge about the breakdown of her marriage to media executive Greg Hywood.

The book is about Hywood’s infidelity, and how mortified, and shame-filled, and bonkers, his adultery made his wife feel.

Author Trent Dalton praises it as “saddening but wonderful and honest as fuck!” 

Love the chapters starting with suburbs all to familiar .. 

Deborah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/what.ive.learnt/

Mind, Film and Publishing: https://www.mindfilmandpublishing.com/

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-ive-learnt/id153556330

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He’s On a literacy mission and is an investor in Edsoma a powerful literacy APP.

The world has experienced a shift since the pandemic broke out. Now, self-education has taken a stronger stand than ever, with remote learning and parents actively being school teachers’ assistants. This has, however, enabled poor quality learning and reading. To fix the situation, Kyle Wallgren got the idea to build a new communication and reading application called Edsoma.

Edsoma was designed to get children back in the reading culture and help them bond better with the authority figures in their lives. The app has been on the trajectory to become every family’s favorite reading application with its numerous features and functionalities that encourage bonding while learning. 

One remarkable thing about Edsoma is that parents and guardians do not need to be physically present with their children to read with them. Instead, they can do the reading from any part of the world and still achieve the same.

The app’s creator and CEO, Kyle Wallgren, got the inspiration to build the app due to his marital status as a divorced parent.

“I wanted to continue reading with my children even when I’m not with them. So, I created this app for not just myself but other parents in a similar situation,” he revealed. “Not just divorced parents can benefit from this app, other parents who have to travel for work and veterans get to spend time with their children.”

Beyond being just a reading application, Edsoma also does some tutoring by means of correcting readers when they mispronounce a word during a read-aloud. 

This is one of the app’s key selling points, as children are prone to mispronouncing words or skipping them altogether. So, the app steps in and corrects the pronunciation to make sure they read words correctly. 

Keeping track of reading activities has also been made easier on Edsoma, as parents, schools, and teachers can all monitor books read and progress made.

Edsoma got some props recently at the SXSW Convention in Austin, Texas, where people expressed deep interest in the app and were enthusiastic about getting it on their devices. Wallgren notes that people’s interest in the app is not entirely surprising, as many children have fallen behind with their reading during the pandemic.

“I especially love the increased confidence we see in children using the app combined with the boosted passion for learning and actually learning how to read words correctly,” he said.

The public launch date for Edsoma is this spring, and right now, the website has gone live for pre-subscription registrations. Teachers and parents already have rave reviews about the application, which has set plans for future collaborations with schools and tutoring companies in motion.

In the next few years, the goal for Edsoma is to be a part of more educational and parenting programs, helping children develop their reading skills and relationships with parents, guardians, and teachers.

Deborah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/what.ive.learnt/

Mind, Film and Publishing: https://www.mindfilmandpublishing.com/

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-ive-learnt/id153556330

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Tom Richardson

Chief Executive Officer

Literacy Planet 

Tom is on a mission to transform the way people learn. He is humbled to be leading the Literacy Planet team who are inspiring a lifetime of learning. Tom is a proud dad of three kids and loves nature, the outdoors, adventure and travel. Less

Literacy Planet is a research and evidence-aligned literacy program, combining the science of reading, great storytelling and the psychology of game play to create a learning experience that educators and students love.

The driving force behind Literacy Planet is motivating students to discover the joy of learning through the power of great storytelling and gamified learning experiences.

Immersive storytelling Just as the world’s most popular films and games are driven by compelling narratives, Literacy Planet’s Storyverse immerses readers in a captivating world of fun, fantasy and wonder. This is where learning becomes meaningful and memorable, inspiring children to connect with their own writing in imaginative and creative ways.

Gamification for learning Literacy Planet uses the psychology of game play to encourage, motivate and reward children as they move from one curriculum outcome to the next. It is an enabler, building confidence and determination within a safe and nurturing environment.

Deborah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/what.ive.learnt/

Mind, Film and Publishing: https://www.mindfilmandpublishing.com/

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-ive-learnt/id153556330

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3TQjCspxcrSi4yw2YugxBk

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Sophie Walker 

Australian Birth Stories 

Nearly 300,000 women give birth in Australia each year and one third of them describe their birth experience as traumatic.

“I wish someone had told me!' is the most common phrase for women after they give birth for the first time.

Sophie’s ground-breaking new book The Complete Australian Guide to Pregnancy and Birth is out this month.

Author of “Australian Birth Stories” Sophie is a mum of 3 with a Masters in Public Health. 

In 2017 Sophie Walker launched her business from the back of her Nissan X Trail. In 5 years it’s grown to a million dollar empire. 

Since the podcast launched, it’s had over 10 million total downloads (episodes now clock upwards of 30,000 downloads) and has shared over 350 women’s birthing stories including Turia Pitt, Zoe Foster-Blake, Ash London, Steph Claire Smith and Emma Isaacs. It has a waitlist of 5000 women who want to share their stories. And, 146,000 mothers, mothers-to-be, and midwives now form Sophie’s online community.

Endorsed by the Australian College of Midwives, the podcast is nationally recognised as an education tool and is used as certified professional development for student midwives across Australia.

Sophie’s motivation comes from personal experience – her first birth was traumatic; a long labour and forceps-assisted birth resulted in a postpartum hemorrhage and pelvic floor trauma. 

When she fell pregnant for the second time, she was fiercely determined to do things differently. She listened to every birth podcast, watched every birth documentary, read every book and armed herself with birth skills. Her second birth was positive, empowering and redemptive and it became the first ever episode on the podcast.

A new generation of mothers are desperate for stories of conception, pregnancy, birth, postpartum and breastfeeding. After years of pandemic isolation and with one-third of Australian women describing their birth experience as traumatic, pregnant mothers and those trying to conceive are hungry for tips, tricks and first hand accounts of birth. 

They want to know how to prepare, what their options are and how they can navigate the challenge of labour with birth skills. And they want to learn from the wisdom of women’s birth stories.

For Sophie, education is the secret weapon against birth trauma. She believes every woman has the right to a positive birth experience.

Deborah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/what.ive.learnt/

Mind, Film and Publishing: https://www.mindfilmandpublishing.com/

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-ive-learnt/id153556330

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From the recent battlefields of Ukraine to the refugee camps of Greece and Syria, Dr. Alison Thompson has spent more than two decades helping those when they need it the most.

And as the tragedy in Turkey unfolds with more than 20,000 deaths and thousands more impacted by the devastating earthquake Dr Alison’s team is on the ground to assist providing much needed resources to save lives . This is her gift a tribe of global volunteers that can be activated whenever and whenever crisis strikes. 

From her early life as a high school teacher Alison has dedicated her life to, as she puts it, “being in the wrong place at the right time.”

Speaking on when she knew this was her path in life, Alison says being on the ground and helping during the 9/11 disaster was the moment that changed her life.

Now in 2022, Dr. Thompson has received the US Presidential Lifetime Service Award, an award usually reserved for US citizens, her work with organisation, Third Wave Volunteers, brings people from all over the world together to help one another.

Dr. Alison Thompson joins me from Miami before she embarks to a war zone on Ukraine followed by an urgent visit to Turkey ..to share stories from her incredible life, and what drives her to run toward danger.

Deborah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/what.ive.learnt/

Mind, Film and Publishing: https://www.mindfilmandpublishing.com/

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-ive-learnt/id153556330

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Taking care of our brain as we age is a critical choice ..

Save Your Brain is a new book by renowned By Dr Ginni Mansberg, In it she provides simple steps and proven strategies to reduce your risk of cognitive decline - before it's too late

The evidence is clear - almost half of all cases of dementia and cognitive decline are preventable. But sadly none are treatable.

So what are the lifestyle changes that really make a difference to our brain health? What do the experts do to protect themselves from cognitive decline? And what can we do right now to preserve our quality of life as we age?

Save Your Brain answers all these questions and more.  As we age, dementia and Alzheimer's pose a serious threat to our health and wellbeing. To give us a running start in the fight against cognitive decline, GP and acclaimed broadcaster Dr Ginni Mansberg presents the very latest evidence-based research on how to protect your most valuable asset – your clever, vulnerable, powerful brain. As the health of our brains increasingly takes centre stage, Ginni gives up-to-the-minute advice and strategies you can implement now to protect your brain as you age.

A must-read for anyone looking to maintain their quality of life, or that of loved ones, into old age.

About the Author

Dr Ginni Mansberg is a GP, well-known TV host as well as resident GP on Channel

7's Sunrise and The Morning Show. She is the author of the bestselling M Word: How to thrive in menopause. Ginni is on a mission to demystify health and wellbeing in midlife and beyond. She is a sought-after speaker and presenter in all forms of media.

Deborah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/what.ive.learnt/

Mind, Film and Publishing: https://www.mindfilmandpublishing.com/

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-ive-learnt/id153556330

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3TQjCspxcrSi4yw2YugxBk

Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1365850

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Australian born pianist Rita Reichman began her performance career as a 3 year old child prodigy, the performance being on ABC TV.

She has had an extraordinary education, beginning here with Jascha Spivakovsky and then at age 9 was invited to study at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.

Two years later she was accepted to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, as one of their youngest student, obtaining a Bachelors Degree at 17.

This was followed by a Masters Degree from The Juilliard School in New York at 20.

She continues her international performance career as soloist , recording artist, chamber musician. and is in much demand to give master classes.

She was Head of Piano at the Australian National Academy of Music for 10 years, and is much sought after as an adjudicator of international piano competitions, 

and pedagogue, with many of her students going on to have international careers of their own.

Rita has performed in China, South Africa, Europe North and South America, Canada, Russia and of course all over Australia. 

She has performed in the White House for the presidents of the United States and Brazil and was invited to perform for the (then) Prince Charles and Princess Diana 

when they were on their Australian tour.

Rita was awarded the prestigious title of  Steinway Artist.

Deborah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/what.ive.learnt/

Mind, Film and Publishing: https://www.mindfilmandpublishing.com/

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-ive-learnt/id153556330

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3TQjCspxcrSi4yw2YugxBk

Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1365850

Send us Fan Mail

Hi, Welcome to the What I’ve Learnt podcast

I am Luke, one of the producers for the show. As a producer I live my work and helping Deborah and our team share so many wonderful stories.

From food to fashion and art to music we’ve got you covered.

With spring just around the corner, we wanted to highlight some amazing moments of the podcast from November to December....

Kim Krejus is the Director of 16th Street Actors studio has brought some of the world's most renowned acting coaches and directors, here including Leonardo Di Caprio's acting coach, Larry Moss, Bradley Cooper's acting coach, Elizabeth Kemp and lan Rickson who directed Hugh Jackman on Broadway.

Sigrid Thornton, stellar much loved actor, now starring in her new role in the Chekhov classic The Seagull at the STC. Known for work in television shows like Seachange (1998 - 2019) and Wentworth (2016 - 2018), as well as film apperences in the films Snapshot (1979) and The Man From Snowy River (1982) and many more works.

Dr. Rick Hodes is the JDC’s medical director in Ethiopia. JDC is the leading Jewish humanitarian organization, working in 70 countries to lift lives and strengthen communities.  Initially arriving in 1984 to help famine victims, he returned in 1985 to teach at Addis Ababa University Faculty of Medicine, and has worked for JDC since 1990.

Dr. Alison Thompson founded Third Wave Volunteers as a first responder on Sept 11th, 2001 in NYC which has grown to over 30,000 first responders worldwide. Alison has worked at the grassroots level in Sri Lanka, Haiti, Philippines, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia, Africa, Nepal, 12 USA hurricanes, Venezuela, The Bahamas,  the Syrian and Venezuelan Crisis and numerous other disasters around the world. 

Deborah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/what.ive.learnt/

Mind, Film and Publishing: https://www.mindfilmandpublishing.com/

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-ive-learnt/id153556330

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3TQjCspxcrSi4yw2YugxBk

Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1365850