13th May 2026

Delivered by: Paris Syminelakis

Key features: community participation; STEM; creativity; philosophy; critical thinking; literacy; mathematics; dialogical learning; Multisensory learning.

Dr. Syminelakis works on the safety and validation of Autonomous Vehicles for General Motors in Maryland. He has a PhD from Stanford University in Electrical Engineering. His experience includes teaching undergraduates linear algebra, stochastic control and advanced algorithmic topics. So what was he doing in Edinburgh this spring? He was running a workshop for our pupils on: Understanding, Counting and Computation. It sounds complicated, but the class was so well taught that all the children came out of it enthusiastic about all they had learnt. They started with the story of Prometheus; they understood the difference between knowledge and understanding (and why understanding is ‘higher’ than simply knowing); they began thinking about what numbers are (philosophy of mathematics); they had an introduction to computation; and touched on the limits of Logic. The children engaged wonderfully with these deep and basic concepts. They kept Dr. Syminelakis busy with endless questions. He may need to return for a second workshop however, since there was not enough time to exhaust the topics.