We’re going to be talking about responsible technology. That may sound a bit vague, so I’ll share a few more hints about where we ‘re going. This is about an initiative by, and for, young people. We’ll be talking to the president of Fidutam , a small but global civil society organisation which started by using secure tech to enable small loans to young people. But there’s more, they have also developed technology to enable anyone, but especially young people, to be able to learn almost anything using generative AI tools for free, a sort of study buddy if you like.
Fidutam have also worked out how to influence policy makers and have contributed to consultations in the USA and Europe. To me, this is an intriguing mix of activities for a global organisation that is focused on, and run by, young people.
absolutely AI
And just so you know, we recorded this in December 2024 so the AI and political landscape may have changed a great deal by the time you’re listening to this. Maestro should be up and running now that we are in 2025 so that you could try it out yourself. If you do, let us know how it went. I first found out about Fidutam from an article in the New Scientist magazine from 2023 and I am really amazed at the influence they seem to have built up with the politicians. What about you? What do you think the politicians should be doing to ensure AI develops in a good way over your lifetime?
Thanks for listening and if you have a story to tell then don’t hesitate to get in touch or leave a comment. We are also on Apple podcasts and Spotify where you can give us a rating.
Our next show will be coming to you from Laurent Borgmann in Germany on 4th April.
Hello dear listeners and welcome to show 303 of our podcast “Absolutely Intercultural”. Today, we are going to talk about the cultural aspects of “national borders”, human-made geographical lines separating two countries or regions. Some see borders as the ugly scars on the face of the earth – when others say “Where there is a border, there is a story.” I am speaking these words to you from South Africa where I am on a teaching assignment and on my flight here I probably crossed a dozen such boundaries, a bit like a migrating bird blissfully ignoring the national borders on the ground.
Thank you for tuning in and I hope you bring with you your own culturally diverse opinions on borders. This is the Absolutely Intercultural Podcast – and we appreciate diversity and different views on the same subject – and absolutely everyone is welcome to think absolutely everything about this contentious topic!
National borders are causing most conflicts all over the world. From our guests, we will learn how borders can be viewed very differently, depending on your cultural and political background. In the cultural context of holidays, borders can be cute instagrammable opportunities for a selfie, in others they present an impenetrable barrier and keep inhabitants imprisoned in a confined area.
By the way, today, we are transgressing a border ourselves, for the first time in the history of this podcast. We are hosting a very unusual guest here today. Anne Fox one of the makers of this podcast, will be joining us today on the other side of the microphone as our interviewee.
absolutely human
In our first story, we will listen to Ilja, a travel agent who regularly finds himself crossing borders somewhere in Europe. Ilja seems to have thought a lot about borders and has come to the conclusion that borders are not natural, but are rather abstract lines that humans have drawn to organize their cultures and communities.
absolutely secure
In our second story, we will listen to Serhii. He believes that unrestricted freedom of movement could lead to increased immigration and possibly a rise in crime. He also believes that going to another country shouldn’t be as easy as it is in Europe nowadays but instead, every traveler should be “trusted but also properly checked” in order to protect our distinct cultures.
absolutely privileged
In our last story, we will listen to Anne Fox, who is one of the regular moderators of this podcast. Anne thinks that her home country, Britain, has lost a lot of its former privileges and travel freedoms by leaving the European Union five years ago.
What about you? What is your take on this? Do you think we should tighten border security, or do you think we should remove borders between countries wherever possible? Could getting rid of the borders in fact destroy some unique cultural identities and reduce cultural diversity? We would love to hear your stories! Get in touch, feel free to share your opinion with us here on this podcast.
Write a comment or mail us, we could do a follow-up interview with you in one of our next shows. On our web page, absolutely-intercultural.com, you can get more information about this show and previous episodes, and you can leave comments. And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too.
By the way, did you know we are also on iTunes or Apple Podcasts? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.
Our next show will be coming to you from Anne Fox in Denmark on 7 March
Until then – listen to stories from the other side of the border and
Bleiben Sie absolut interkulturell!
The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann (German)
Picture the scene: You and your companion have stopped at a cafe, chosen a table and drawn up your chairs. Why did you do this? In this show Lisa La Valle will explain cafe culture as part of her culture hacks for Americans. Welcome to 2025 and show 302 of Absolutely Intercultural which takes a closer look at the new book by Lisa La Valle, 101 Culture Hacks for Americans living abroad (and other digital nomads): One unwritten rule at a time. My name’s Anne Fox and this show is coming to you from Denmark. Back in 2018 we spoke to Lisa La Valle in her role as an intercultural trainer and in this show we are going to learn more about the book Lisa is writing billed as a primer for Americans venturing outside their borders. Why did she write it?
We’ll explore one or two of the hacks in the taster version of the book that is already available on Amazon. For example, did you ever think about what happens in cafes and restaurants?
And finally we’ll find out more about how much Lisa relies on the cultural frameworks which we hear so much about, such as Hofstede and the Culture Connector, compared to Lisa’s own observations on, for example, the effect of space on how loudly you speak.
absolutely hacked
So let’s go absolutely hacked and find out why Lisa, an American now living in Italy, started writing 101 Culture Hacks for Americans living abroad
absolutely café culture
Next I wanted to explore one or two of the examples from the taster version that is available right now on Amazon so let’s go absolutely cafe culture.
absolutely frameworked
Lisa La Valle has used the Culture Connector framework in her work as an intercultural facilitator so I wondered whether she’d used that or any of the other popular frameworks, many of which we have talked about on this podcast in the past, as part of her 101 Culture hacks book so let’s go absolutely frameworked.
It was very interesting to hear how Lisa makes use of the various cultural frameworks in such a pragmatic way. It sometimes seems as though these frameworks are presented as THE way to look at cultural differences, Hofstede’s dimensions, tight and loose cultures, the Four Cs and so on whereas Lisa draws on several of these frameworks as appropriate. The taster version of Lisa’s book is available on Amazon now and the full version will be coming out later this spring. What about you? Have you made some useful observations about cultural hacks relating to your own culture? We’d love to hear them.
Thanks for listening and if you have a story to tell then don’t hesitate to get in touch or leave a comment. We are also on Apple podcasts and Spotify where you can give us a rating.
Our next show will be coming to you from Laurent Borgmann in Germany on 7th February.
Welcome to show 300 of Absolutely Intercultural. My name’s Anne Fox and this show is coming to you from Denmark. In this show I find out more about a very interesting EU-supported collaboration between a group of universities, intercultural practitioners recruited from SIETAR, the Society for Intercultural Education and Research and the culture game diversophy, as they developed a conversation game aimed at helping both sides understand more about each other in various common intercultural situations. The tool is called IncluKIT as it is aimed at fostering inclusion and in this case the focus was on migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. You play the game in small groups of 4 to 6 people who discuss the issues they are presented with. The strategy of IncluKIT is to start with finding out what the groups think of a particular situation in general and then the job of the facilitator is to gradually feed more and more specific information about the situation with the group talking about how they react to the developing story which is built on an incident which happened to a real life asylum centre employee.
absolutely inclusive When I sat down to talk to Michal, David and Catherine, I asked them to take me through one of their conversation cases, called Eva’s Day about a worker in a reception centre for asylum seekers. Let’s hear more about how this scenario was built and how the conversation around it is guided as we go absolutely inclusive, firstly with Michal and then David and Catherine.
Thank you to Catherine, Michal and David for taking the time to explain the in depth process they went through to come up with these IncluKit conversation exercises. The first version of the kit is now available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish and you can download the facilitator guide and three case studies to try out for yourself by going to the project website hosted by the University of Opole .
Do you see a role for this type of exercise in your context? Looking at the three scenarios already built up, can you think of additional ones that you would like to build? Do you see yourself as a facilitator for this type of exercise? Have you tried it? Let us know in the comments, and if you want to share how it went in a future show then do get in touch.
So yes, that was the 300th show, since we started way back in 2006 and you can browse through them all on this website. Thank for still listening and if you have a story to tell then don’t hesitate to get in touch or leave a comment. We are also on Apple podcasts and Spotify where you can give us a rating.
And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too.
Our next show will be coming to you from Laurent Borgmann in Germany on 6th December.
I think we all know by now that we have to live more sustainably to avoid the worst effects of climate change and biodiversity loss. We probably know of several changes that we ought to be making, laws that should be passed and businesses that ought to behave better. If we know all this then why does it not happen? Because knowledge is not enough, we have to pay attention also to values, beliefs and attitudes.
Welcome to Absolutely Intercultural, show number 298, the podcast about all things intercultural. My name’s Anne Fox and this show is coming to you from Denmark. In this show I am going to be examining a European project, called SysMind which aimed to focus on the building of sustainable values. The SysMind project, based in Austria and with partners in Latvia, Turkey, Spain, Ukraine and North Macedonia, aimed to help teachers embrace diversity and explore the spiritual side of sustainability. One major outcome of their work was a free online course which you could join.
What could happen after you have done this course? Hear what Liidia, a teacher in a Ukranian forestry college, has to say.
But how do you grade students on their sustainability mindset? Our last segment will present one option which was developed by the high school students themselves: Let’s hear from their teacher, Piotr.
absolutely cooperative So let’s go absolutely cooperativec by hearing why one of the partners, Ernestine, running a sustainable rural development organisation in southern Spain joined the SysMind project.
I must say that as I listened to Ernestine talk about her organisation, Fundacion Monte Mediterraneo, and had a look around their website I had a strong urge to visit myself in their holiday accommodation.
absolutely transformative The SysMind project ran a blended course for teachers on how to promote a sustainable mindset in their students with an emphasis on values and spirituality partly through inclusion and embracing diversity. One of the course participants was Liidia who is a teacher at a forestry college in Ukraine. Let’s hear how this course was absolutely transformative.
And you could also start this journey from being uncertain what sustainability means to becoming your organisation’s go-to person on the topic, by taking the free online course that the SysMind project developed and which you can do in your own time.
absolutely mindful How essential is the mindset to achieving sustainability? Ernestine in Spain had a radical opinion about this which I must say I could entirely sympathise with. Let’s see if you agree as we go absolutely mindful.
absolutely certificated If we agree about the importance of a sustainable mindset, then how do we teachers know if our students have achieved that? In the SysMind project they used a method called Sus Mind Expert which was developed by the Pilgrim School network. In order to convince your teacher of your sustainable mindset you have 14 topic areas to choose from, that loosely reflect the 17 UN sustainable development goals, and for each of these topic areas, there is a video you can watch, a prompt activity that helps you consider the spiritual aspect of the topic area and then about ten mini projects from which you choose five, to display your sustainable mindset. These could include picking up litter, an art project, a zero waste week and so on. Show your teacher evidence that you have completed these mini projects and you can collect your Sus Mind Expert certificate. But how did this start? Let’s go absolutely certificated as we talk to Piotr, a religion teacher in a Pilgrim school who was witness to this.
Although it is a certificate, it is the experience of working up to the award of the certificate that is key here. You can see the whole document by following the link on our website. As a teacher, I can see that this could easily be tweaked to meet many learning contexts.
So what do you think? Should we stop climate change research and focus on implementation? Could Liidia’s transformative experience also happen to you? And what do you think about getting a certificate for your sustainable mindset? Thank you to the members of the Sys Mind project who shared their experiences with us for this show.
Write a comment or mail us, we could do a follow-up interview with you in one of our next shows. On our web page you can get more information about this show and previous episodes, and leave comments. And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too.
By the way, did you know we are also on Apple podcasts and Spotify? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment. Our next show will be coming to you from Laurent Borgmann in Germany on 4th October.
How do you travel? Intentionally? In today’s show we are going to once again be hearing about how the need to belong can lead to people migrating to another country. In this case it will be about African Americans who had very strong reasons for feeling that only by moving to another country could they become their true selves.
That of course, was because of racial segregation in the US that was implemented after the abolition of slavery, and that is still felt today, for example as an effect from land zoning.
Welcome to Absolutely Intercultural show number 296. My name’s Anne Fox and this show is coming to you from me in Denmark and from Germany, where Oljana helped plan and carry out the interview.
One of the main themes in this show is about intentional travel:
Our guest today is Dr Tamara J Walker, a professor of history at Colombia University, who recently wrote a book about this movement of African Americans out of the US. The book is Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad and it’s a great read, full of information you probably didn’t know such as the story of the agricultural graduates who went to Uzbekistan in the Soviet Union where their skills were much better appreciated than back home in the US.
In this show, we’ll be hearing more about the book and how Tamara’s early opportunities to travel led her to write it, combining history with her own family story. We’ll also hear how her The Wandering Scholar scheme helps high schoolers explore opportunities inspired by Tamara’s transformative early travel experiences.
So let’s start the show by finding out more about Tamara’s book, Beyond the Shores. The book intertwines Tamara’s own history which explains how she came to be a historian at Columbia University and we hear later what she is doing to open up opportunities for others with her background.
The book begins in the theatres of Paris in the 1920s to talk not so much of Josephine Baker, who is a well-known name, but of Florence Mills whose story did not end so well. Let’s go absolutely historical with Oljana.
absolutely historical Both Oljana and I had the chance to read the book and found it really interesting. I was intrigued about the last chapter which made the point about travelling absolutely intentionally.
absolutely intentionally If you are travelling right now, maybe you could think about how to find out more about the new place you are in and how it got to be how it is now? For example in Pairs with Black Paris Tours.
absolutely transformative As a way of giving young Americans the opportunities that she had, Tamara and a colleague have set up an initiative called Wandering Scholar. Let’s go absolutely transformative!
What about you? Do you travel intentionally? Could you imagine how your next trip would change to become more intentional? Have you already had a transformative travel experience? Maybe we could tell your story in a future show?
And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook .
Catch us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.
The next show will be coming to you from Germany with Laurent Borgmann on the 2nd of August.
In the last show we heard about different types of freedom and in this show, 294, we will continue this theme and find out how lack of freedom can drive someone to leave their country.
Also, in this show we’ll be looking beyond the Erasmus semester abroad, at what can happen when you aim to relocate to a new country permanently. Your head or your heart? Which will win?
We’ll end with a very important problem which Danish leaders often overlook. But is it just Danish leaders?
My name’s Anne Fox and this show is coming to you from Denmark, which is where today’s guest, Dora, decided to relocate to from Hungary. Dora is a coach and therapist and has noticed that, while the headline advantages of coming to Denmark to live are fairly well known globally, there is a downside, that Dora calls “killing me softly”.
But is this show all doom and gloom? No! We will finish with a very simple piece of advice that Dora has for Danish leaders, but which I think is very good advice for everyone.
Today I am talking with Dora Hegedus who runs a coaching company, called Your Thinking Partner, in Denmark. Dora will tell us why she felt that she and her family should leave Hungary, even though she was already in her fifties when they decided to make the move.
absolutely killing me softly But first we’ll find out why the famed work-life balance of working in Denmark is not enough and how Danish leaders are losing their new international employees through careless inattention to one critical factor. What Dora might call, absolutely killing me softly.
absolutely ready to leave So a sense of belonging is critical to being able to take full advantage of the freedoms of Denmark and in our next segment we will hear how it was this sense of belonging that Dora felt slipping away in her native Hungary. Hear how Dora felt increasingly alienated as we go absolutely ready to leave.
absolutely helpful Now we don’t want to leave you with the feeling that Denmark is a hopeless case for internationals. It is clearly working for Dora. So here is one last piece of advice that Dora has for Danish leaders on how to retain their foreign staff. Let’s go absolutely helpful.
So that’s it! Ask your foreign colleagues if they need help. Advice which I am sure would bear fruit everywhere, not just Denmark. What do you think? What’s the best way of helping people feel they belong in your country?
Share your story with us via comment or email, and you could feature in one of our upcoming shows. For more information and previous episodes, explore our website.
And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too.
By the way, did you know we are also on Apple Podcasts and Spotify? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.
The next show will be coming to you from Germany with Laurent Borgmann on the 7th of June.
Until then – stay tuned to your international colleagues!
Welcome to Absolutely Intercultural show number 292 on World Futures Day. My name’s Anne Fox and this show is coming to you from Denmark, but when you’re online, does it matter where I am? In this show we’ll be looking at some of the issues that can happen in online courses. Yes, believe it or not, online learning existed long before the Covid 19 pandemic and for this show I decided to ask some of my colleagues at NILE in Norwich about some of the things that can happen when you are teaching online. We’ll hear from Robert about a joke gone wrong, from Eva about how to organise a mixed gender group so that the genders are never mixed and what happened in Neil’s Zoom session that so upset the rest of the group?
absolutely separate
So let’s start with Eva and go absolutely separate about how to organise a mixed gender group so that the genders are never mixed.
absolutely funny
In our next segment we’ll be talking to Robert about something that he experienced when he was facilitating a very diverse group from around the world. Is it absolutely funny?
absolutely real
And in our final segment, we’ll meet Neil who lives in Spain and works for NILE teaching aviation English where we’ll learn how online learning can be absolutely real. But first the dilemma of adjusting meetings to meet other cultural norms.
Neil’s story about his student in Kiev reminds me that this week on several TV stations simultaneously, a new series called “In her Car” tells the story of a Ukrainian woman who volunteers to drive people in Ukraine during the current conflict.
If you have any stories about intercultural challenges with online learning then let us know here on the blog in a comment.
And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too.
By the way, did you know we are also on Apple Podcasts and now Spotify? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.
The next show will be coming to you from Germany with Laurent Borgmann on the 5th of April.
Imagine the future. What do you see? I think I could safely bet a lot of money that what you’re seeing now in your mind involves high tech, humanoid robots, and metallic high-rise cities! Can we be more imaginative about the future? And how do you see your personal future? Welcome to show 291 of Absolutely Intercultural coming to you from Denmark. My name’s Anne Fox and in this show we’re going to talk about the future, or rather, futures. Futures?
absolutely plausible
We’ll start with finding out more about what Futures Studies is, or are, by talking to Thor Svanholm Gustavson of the Copenhagen Futures Studies Institute and no, it’s not about predicting the future but about the possible, the preferred and the absolutely plausible. So what are Futures Studies?
absolutely specific
Thinking about the future is good for societies but let’s explore the personal level. Now let’s be absolutely specific and find out what Viktoria from Georgia told Mariam about her views of her future.
absolutely educational
In our next segment we hear again from Thor in Copenhagen. Let’s go absolutely educational and find out why Futures Studies should be on the school timetable. Thor’s final point makes me want to run a competition to draw a vision of the future that doesn’t include high tech, robots and flying cars. But maybe that’s for the future…
absolutely predictable
Now we’ll hear from Raj, from India, about the role of parents in writing their children’s future. There’s a clear example of the present influencing the future when Raj goes back to India and aims to promote sustainability.
So who’s writing the story about your future? You? Your parents? Society? Do you feel limited by the number of futures that are presented to you or do you, on the other hand have too many possible futures and you need to start thinking about your preferred future? What pictures of the future do you have? Are they all high tech? You can let us know here on the blog at absolutely-intercultural.com where we have links from the organisations mentioned in the show.
And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too.
Thanks to Mariam for interviewing our two RheinAhr Campus students.
By the way, did you know we are also on Apple Podcasts and now Spotify? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.
And talking about predicting the future it is very likely that the next show will be coming to you from me in Denmark on March 1 which by sheer coincidence is World Futures Day!
Fatima Al-Fihri – founder of the first university in the world in Morocco
Welcome to show 289 of Absolutely Intercultural.
Did you know that the richest man who ever lived was an African from Mali in the fourteenth century whose wealth exceeded that of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates put together?
Did you know that the first university in the world was not in Milan, Italy but in Morocco started by a female refugee, Fatima Al-Fihri?
In this show we’re going to find out more about a publishing company called Our Story aimed at young children and their teachers, and why this might help intercultural understanding.
My name’s Anne Fox and I’m based in Denmark and for this show I’m working with Mariam in Germany.
In this show we are going to meet Fahad Siddiqui, a Londoner, living in Brazil, who thinks that we should all know more these people who have faded from history.
absolutely historical
Let’s go absolutely historical and meet Fahad Siddiqui who created the Our Story company to share these stories with children.
absolutely multicultural
As well as being interesting in their own right, one of the aims of the Our Story materials is to introduce children to different cultures so let’s find out more about that and go absolutely multicultural with Mariam.
absolutely charitable
One of the features of the Our Story books is that every time you buy one of the books, the company makes a donation to the charity, CAMFED, which supports the education of girls in a selection of African countries. Let’s go absolutely charitable to find out how and why.
I loved finding out more about the many facets of the Our Story books and I know that our conversation left Mariam thinking hard about her home country of Georgia and whether there would be a candidate for one of the books from her cultural history. And maybe you know of one from your culture too?
Share your story with us via comment or email, and you might feature in one of our upcoming shows. For more information and previous episodes, visit our website at absolutely-intercultural.com. And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too.
By the way, did you know we are also on iTunes or Apple Podcasts? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.
Our next show will be coming to you on 5th January from Laurent Borgmann in Germany
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We’re going to be talking about responsible technology. That may sound a bit vague, so I’ll share a few more hints about where we ‘re going. This is about an initiative by, and for, young people. We’ll be talking to the president of Fidutam , a small but global civil society organisation which started by using secure tech to enable small loans to young people. But there’s more, they have also developed technology to enable anyone, but especially young people, to be able to learn almost anything using generative AI tools for free, a sort of study buddy if you like. 
