James Monaghan is the CEO and founding principal of GEMS School of Research and Innovation, the group's new flagship in Dubai which opened in September 2025. With 30 years in international education spanning the UAE, UK, USA and South Korea, this is the third school James has opened from scratch. In this episode, he explains what makes launching a school so uniquely challenging, why teacher training hasn't kept pace with technology, and how SRI is investing in dedicated innovation time for staff. James shares his controversial view that busy students are the most successful, and describes taking pupils to build biogas units in rural Nepal with no wifi, no phones and no air conditioning.
