EP 152: Anne Chisa, Our Journey and Our Future in STEM Communication

How did we transform from a single podcast into a dynamic media platform that is promoting African voices in STEM on the global stage? Join Anne Chisa, our Founding Director in this exclusive release of where we started and where we are going. 
Our commitment is to spark even bigger conversations, thanks to  our incredible team and the support from our listeners, guests, and partners. 

Chapters

• 0:16 African STEM Podcast Achievements and Future
• 11:32 Global Science Communication Vision for 2025

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:16

hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the root of Sands podcast with your girl, anne Chisa. So, as you are well aware, we at the Root of the Sands podcast, our aim is to amplify Africans in STEM, and I'm your host, anne Chisa. So today's episode is a little bit different, but it's also really special, really special. We're taking a look back at 2024 and we're highlighting some of our achievements and, you know, taking a look on what's next in 2025. But before we dive into it, I have some exciting news to share. So the Root of the Science podcast has been recognized as one of the top 100 African podcasts on the web by Feedspot. And not only that, but we also featured in the top 10 South African science podcasts. You know, this recognition is a huge testament to the power of African storytelling in this field and niche of STEM and science, and I want to give a big thank you to every single listener, like you right now, our past guests, as well as our partners and, of course, the most brilliant team, who come together to put the show every single time that you turn on the podcast. So now we got that really exciting news out of the way, let's dive into some of our biggest moments from 2024.

Speaker 1: 1:55

So, firstly, touching on our highlights and some of our milestones, 2024 was really a transformative year for the Root of the Science. First of all, we transitioned the Root of the Science. First of all, we transitioned to Root of the Science Media and you know that whole thing was really important because it set the stage for this really incredible growth. Not only are we just a podcast, but we transitioned into an online science communication digital platform. So we expanded past audio. We launched our YouTube channel, where you can see me, like you are right now, where we have about 300 subscribers engaging with us with full length videos and you know those short snippets as well, called shorts on YouTube. We also introduced a newsletter. This was led by Teresa Atieno, which brought really in-depth science stories to our audience, because we understand that everybody consumes media in various different ways. So, bringing in the video as well as newsletter, it provided another layer for engagement beyond just the audio experience that you've been used to. You know, and speaking of audios and our past episodes, we released 20 bi-weekly episodes last year, which is really exciting, and it featured guests from across Africa as well as based in other parts of the world. But as long as they identified as Africans. And we really covered some very interesting topics in health and technology, climate change, and I'm just going to run through some of the most standout ones. So what we did is that we had series, podcasts, such as the polio eradication this was in collaboration with the World Health Organization, covered by our reporter, teresa Atieno, and we spoke with Dr Samuel Usman and Dr Lola Kukula Mabaongi and we touched on some of the challenges and successes in Nigeria's fight against polio. Then our other series was African Women in AI. Here we highlighted some women in AI you know, showcasing their pioneering work in quantum AI and natural language processing. We spoke to Olon from Benin and Janelia Rahab from South Africa.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Our most prominent series was the Rooted in Health series. This was a wonderful partnership with the Global Health Strategies and this powerful series really tackled on critical health issues such as cervical cancer, malnutrition, malaria eradication, and we also touched on some digital public infrastructure in health care and how that all comes together. We also had a special episode with Neil Watkins from the Blim Melinda Gates Foundation where we spoke about the goalkeepers report. That brought critical discussions on malnutrition, impacting over 400 million children globally.

Speaker 1: 5:37

One of my other favorite series was the Dream Again series, where we celebrated young African women in STEM. This series was quite special. It wasn't a series as such, it was a special episode. So we covered the Tech Innovation Summit held last year in June July, where young African women who are Young school girls showcased their innovations aligned with the UN Sustainable Goals. We spoke to some really young and exciting young girls who are aspiring to enter into various different disciplines of STEM. So the future is really really bright.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Another feature that we had was the Amplifying Africans in STEM at Lindau 2024. So this was a special also podcast series, because I had the privilege of attending the Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting, which happened in Germany, and there I spoke to some really incredible young African scientists about quantum physics, ai and physics, energy solutions and so much more. In our non-series episode, we featured guests who are doing really incredible things and had such wonderful conversations on digital safety, sustainable forestry, space science, storytelling, and we touched on femconnect let's fight against period poverty as well. So that is just an overview of all of the amazing conversations that we had last year. That sort of wrapped up our episodes, and each of these conversations showcase the power of african research, innovation and, of course, storytelling.

Speaker 1: 7:26

Now let's get into the podcast growth and just some of our impact. So our community has grown immensely in 2024. And I'm really, really excited. We have over 21,000 total podcast downloads, which is so exciting because it means that we had people listening in from so many parts of the world to be more specific, 149 countries, as well as 1,902 cities across the globe. That is incredible. Thank you so much. So 78% of our audience listened via mobile, so meaning that you guys like to listen to us on the go, and the most podcast favorite listening was Apple podcast. 51% come from Africa and about 29% of our listenership, which was the second, come from North America. Our most listened city country was South Africa. Our most listened country was America and our most listened city was Johannesburg Shout out to everyone who tuned in from all of those countries. So this year we saw some major milestones in our funding and some collaborations. Like I mentioned earlier, we partnered up with Global Health Strategies to do the Rooted in Health series. We were also granted a travel grant by the Lindau Nobel Laureate meetings, with support from the Academy of Science of Africa. We also secured small funding from a competition that I won from the University of KwaZulu-Natal's postgraduate inspiring impact challenge, and we landed a wonderful grant by the Gates Foundation for our work ahead. So some really, really exciting things that are coming up, and I am so excited. These partnerships have been so instrumental in amplifying our impact and bringing more voices into this conversation. So you've heard about everything that's happened.

Speaker 1: 9:43

So what's next for 2025? Well, we plan to level up and here's what you can expect. First of all, we'd really want to scale our content creation by having more episodes as usual, more videos and richer storytelling to really be more visibly available to reach so many other people, particularly on youtube. We want to grow our reach there. Um, so share make sure to share episodes um to like our pages as well. We'd also love to strengthen partnerships with um, deepen our collaborations and create even more high impact series.

Speaker 1: 10:24

So if you are an organization that would love to partner up with us about how we can communicate some of the incredible work that you, your organization, your institution, are doing in digital science communication, would love to have a conversation with you also. Another thing that's really close to our heart specifically is the capacity building in terms of science communication training. We've been doing it sort of in the background, but now we really want to help roll out with working with partners as well, to do workshops for researchers on how they can effectively communicate their science and not only researchers, students and early career professionals to help them, you know, communicate their science more effectively. We are also excited for more funding opportunities because, as much as these things look simple, it requires a lot of funding from behind. So we'll continue seeking for support to grow our platform, improve our production and also reach a wider audience.

Speaker 1: 11:32

So our vision for 2025 is to be a leading platform for amplifying African voices and STEM across the globe and driving action through science communication. So whenever you think of science and science communication in the digital space, you should think of Ritu, of the Science Media. So, in closing, it's to every single listener, our supporters, our guests and our partners thank you for making 2024 an incredible year. You're encouraging, you really fuel this platform and I can't wait to bring you bigger, bolder conversations in 2025. A special thank you to my wonderful team who have been part of this, who really encourage this vision, and don't forget to subscribe, share, follow on YouTube, spotify, apple Podcasts and all of our socials. Here's to an even bigger and better, 2025. Until next time, it's your girl, anne, with an E Goodbye.