Nic Riemer Podcast Transcript
Nic Riemer joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to the Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Do you work in emerging tech, working on something innovative? Maybe an entrepreneur? Apply to be a guest at www.coruzant.com/brand.
Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Nic Riemer. Nic Riemer is the co-founder of The Invigilator and Education Technology platform established in 2020 to make assessments more accessible, secure, and inclusive.
The platform enables students to complete high stakes assessments remotely through an all-in-one application, reducing the cost, travel, and logistic barriers traditionally associated with in-person exams. By allowing learners to sit assessments from home or work, the Invigilator supports wider participation in formal education.
Well, good afternoon, Nic. Welcome to the show.
Nic Riemer: Thank you so much, Brian. Yeah, great to be on the show.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely my friend. I appreciate it and I really do because you’re in South Africa currently where you’re based out of, and I’m in Kansas City, central part of the United States. So, we have several hours and time zones between us and that’s a challenge. So, thank you again for doing this.
Nic Riemer: No, no problem at all.
Brian Thomas: Nic, let’s jump right into your first question here. You co-founded the Invigilator App to remove cost, travel and logistics barriers from high stake exams. What problem in educational assessment felt most urgent to solve when you started in 2020?
Nic Riemer: So I think when we looked at starting the Invigilator data back in 2020, I think one of the main reasons was that a lot of the tech that had been created had really been created with sort of high stakes first world markets in mind as opposed to sort of the bulk volume and the undergrad sort of, university groups and, and school groups.
So, the tech. Really meant that that limited groups were able to use it. You typically didn’t move an entire college online. You moved a small pocket of the college online, and then when COVID came, this is exactly what was needed. We needed to move to entire universities and schools across Africa, initially online because of the virus.
And really that’s where the idea came about to create solutions that were more inclusive, that allowed students to write as many assessments as they wanted to online, but doing so in a credible manner and making sure that exam. Conduct was being abided by, and that’s where the Invigilator was born.
And I think once we, once we started solving that problem, we just realized that we could roll this tech out further and wide. And it meant that more and more people could study what they want, when they want, and really drop the borders for education and make it more accessible.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. Again, you’ve had a problem there and you really built a solution around that which is incredible. And I like how you said, you built the app to be more inclusive, but we all know that, um, colleges and students need this sort of technology and it wasn’t built around that. It was built around, as you said, kinda that high stakes probably places that, people looking to get their certifications, that sort of thing. But this really changed the game because this leveled the playing field for students all around the world, and I really appreciate that.
Nic Riemer: So, no, thanks so much. Yeah,
Brian Thomas: You bet. Nic. Remote assessments often raise concerns about integrity and trust.
How does the Invigilator balance accessibility with security to ensure exams remain credible and fair?
Nic Riemer: So I think that’s been, main, the main building block of the company is to say, you know, if we are gonna create a solution that’s gonna require students to have the latest MacBook Pro and constant internet connection, then you’re gonna eliminate a, a huge part of the population globally that can utilize your tech.
So, it was about. Using effective technology in combination with assessment technique to make sure assessments remain credible, but to provide teachers, professors, lecturers with the footage they need to make sure that exam conduct was abided by. And I think this new digital age of AI has been extremely interesting because we’ve been able to create models to run locally on devices so that our solutions can run completely awfully.
But when a student misbehaves, for example, they talk, or the wrong person appears in front of the, in front of the pc, for example, that’s when our AI picks up that it’s now time to start recording and gathering that evidence and uploading it. So, it means moving away from uploading entire files for the full three hour, four hour assessment and rather uploading what an examiner or assessor would need to see.
And in that way, we. Don’t expect students to be connected to the internet for the entire time. They can write on entry level devices, but you are getting that same credibility that you would as though you were standing in a room watching that student the entire time writing. So, I think from that, it just meant that students could write more regularly.
So, you didn’t have to just come into a venue to write once a year or twice a year because of the fixed costs associated with that. It meant that teachers and professors could examine and test more regularly and students could study and write, where and when was convenient to them.
Brian Thomas: That’s amazing. I think that’s really cool that, again, effectively using this technology, uh, to ensure that the assessment process is validated. But what’s really cool is it accommodates not only the student, but their environment, the timing, time, schedule, that sort of thing. And the technology again can certainly validate that.
So, I appreciate your insights. And Nic supporting around 850,000 active users across more than a hundred institutions is no small feat. What operational or technical challenges emerge when assessment suddenly becomes a national scale digital service?
Nic Riemer: So I think, again, one of the big challenges we had to solve, I think that if you look at, the traditional proctoring market, really, you’d have small pockets, like I said earlier, making use of the tech and now all of a sudden we were moving institutions that had, 400, 500,000 students all writing at the same time, meaning need to use the text.
I think the architecture was something that really needed to be built in the right way early on so that we could handle that traffic and handle that volume. And I think that’s something that we’ve been able to do and been relied upon so that we’ve always been able to process assessments for our platform.
And I think that we’ve got to a point now where, especially in Africa, the majority of institutions are utilizing us in some way. And, and because of the architecture, there is that reliance on our systems to make sure that when exams start, our systems are all up. Students are able to write examinations and we’re able to conduct the academic assessment credibility with it.
So I think, yeah, that, in terms of those numbers and that volume, very different to some of the traditional proctoring players in that we are dealing with volume, we are dealing with, big undergrad groups across colleges as opposed to, as opposed to these sort of small exit level modules. And I think with it, so the infrastructure had to be in place to make sure that when we had the high volumes and the high traffic, that all of our systems would work the way they needed to.
And that post. Assessment, all of that information and all that data that’s being collected in terms of video, in terms of audio, in terms of plagiarism, AI detection, et cetera, is done in a nice summarized way to not overburden professors, teachers, assessors, with having to work through data manually, and that we used AI in a very clever way to be able to.
Pinpoint exactly what a teacher or lecturer would then need to look at from an assessment integrity point and what they could then discard and move on from. So, it’s been a system that really has been created to allow huge amounts of volume to, to write and at the same time concurrently.
And then at the same time for those members of the academic staff post, to get nice neatly summarized reports so that it’s not adding to their workload either.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I really appreciate that. And that’s really important. You talked about that with scaling; you had to build that robust infrastructure early on to accommodate the large universities, the number of students.
What’s really cool is there’s that, in using the technology, you’ve got the assessment integrity, and then of course making it easy for the academic staff that reporting the summarization. Using tools like AI to do that is pretty cool. So, thank you. And Nic, the last question of the day here, looking ahead, how do you see technology reshaping assessment globally, especially as ai, identify identity verification and remote learning continue to expand across the education?
Nic Riemer: I think education, academia is evolving, at a, at a rapid pace. And I think with the, with the creation of ai, there’s so more and more students have access to AI and that can be a problem because there is a time and a place for students to write. Study, make sure that it’s their work. And there are also times then for students to utilize AI because that’s what you’re gonna be doing post university in the working world.
So, there’s a lot more involvement within academia to allow technology to accommodate this so that at. A time and a place. We need to make sure that students don’t have access to AI or any other material, and that they are relying on the old school studying method because that teaches you, how to actually practically apply theory to a scenario.
And then there are times where AI is going to be allowed and it’s gonna be promoted and it’s gonna be used, but technology like ours needs to be created so that we still do that in a controlled way as opposed to overlying on AI and not using your brain to develop. Key critical thinking skills as a student.
And I think that’s where education’s gonna evolve. And I think that, as AI’s evolved, so the technology needs to keep up to make sure that it’s assisting academics as much as it’s assisting students to continuously evolve because assessment technique needs to change. There’s a lot more practical’s, a lot more practical application of theory must take place as opposed to the theoretical regurgitation with this new world.
So, I think that. Tech and allowing students to write at a time that’s convenient to them means people can continue studying into work. You don’t have to do it as a full-time student anymore. You can write exams later on in the evening under credible circumstances with the Invigilated tech. And I think that.
As AI continuously evolve, so our platforms will continuously evolve as well, so that when there’s a time and a place for AI usage to be used in an assessment so that we can pick up and make sure that the right prompting is being done, that AI’s not being over relied upon. You’re not copying and pasting, but you’re using AI to streamline your work process like you would do in work.
And I think. Technology is gonna be key in doing that and developing those key skills. And I think that’s where our focus has continued to be, continue to push the boundaries within the tech space and make sure that academics have got this technology so that they can use it in this new digital world that we are living in.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. Really appreciate that Nic. Uh, like everything today you explained, you know, academia is advancing rapidly. Of course. But. With the use cases here of leveraging that new technology you talked about how. There’s a separation there where we need to keep that critical thinking skillset with our students.
And so, you separate part of that exam process from leveraging that technology. And I think that’s important that we keep that in mind as we want our future generations to be able to critically think on their own instead of relying on technologies all the time. So, I appreciate that and Nic, it was certainly a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Nic Riemer: Brian, thank you so much for having me on and me as well. Thank you.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Nic Riemer Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s Podcast Page.
