Wide Open Air Exchange

Talking comedy, hip hop and radio with MC and broadcaster Danny Chifley aka Banga. It takes a few minutes to wrangle the conversation from Banga comedically riffing about his form as an altar boy to getting deeper into his experiences with music creation and radio broadcasting.

Banga has been making music for more than 20 years including hip hop with Chaos Maths and Dirtbox Kings and more recently making electronic, ambient and experimental sounds with Vape Dadz.

Chris Farquharson shares insights from a lifelong interest in boating and most recently in his experience as a volunteer with the Sydney Heritage Fleet helping to restore and run heritage boats. After being born in Zambia, Chris was raised on the west coast of Scotland and the south coast of England and he now lives on the east coast of Australia.

An introduction to Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning with Professor Massimo Piccardi including a discussion of some of the applications of NLP and how machine learning relates to artificial intelligence. Professor Piccardi is Head of Discipline, SEDE Signal Processing and Analytics at UTS and leader for the Big Data Analytics program of the Global Big Data Technologies Centre.

This conversation was recorded in May 2022. There is a later episode titled "What are the concerns about NLP?" shared in January 2023.

Yirrmal shares insights about his new music, community connections, culture and country in North East Arnhem Land and his experience developing his song writing as a new generation artist.

Ann Bridges is a birth educator, registered nurse, doula, clinical hypnotherapist and author of the book Gentle Birthing which is a practical guide for having a positive birth experience through the power of thought and preparedness.

An update on what's happening with the Wide Open Air Exchange podcast schedule at the moment, and previews of forthcoming conversations with doula Ann Bridges (about gentle birthing) and with music radio presenter Tim Ritchie (feat. music of Robert Johnston, Status Quo, and Centriphugal). Subscribe to receive forthcoming episodes via iTunes or Stitcher or Spotify or your preferred podcast platform.

Reviews of movies you can watch at home this Easter holidays each with appropriate themes for the season.

Learning about the Moon in the week of the full moon before Easter. Science and maths educator Selwyn Holland is our guest fielding questions about the origins of the moon, how it effects the tides, and what explains the changing visibility of the moon from Earth.

Insights from a long-serving hospital volunteer who has shared many profound experiences with people in their final days of life in palliative care wards. Bernadette Gallagher had been a volunteer for more than 30 years in Sydney hospitals, including as a patient escort and giving pastoral care, until the Covid pandemic put that on hold. Like other seniors who volunteer, Bernadette would like to return to her meaningful work and community connections.

Matthew Connell's early interests in science and culture led to a 30+ year career as a museum curator specialising in computing and mathematics. We hear about Matthew's early influences, his thoughts on the relevance of museums and material culture, and his concerns about the trappings of technology.