As we’ve previously reported, intrepid explorer Mark Wood is currently half way through his challenge to be the first person to reach the South and then the North pole back to back alone.

As we speak he’s heading north for the second leg of the trip – and this has also given him the chance to drop off some videos he’s recorded of him calling into ipadio to leave a message… from one of the most difficult to reach places on Earth. It’s absolutely incredible – watch the video below.

What of course is remarkable is that he’s using a satellite phone which is capable of taking his voice and using ipadio broadcasting it live on the internet – and posting the recording straight to Facebook, Twitter and his website. All from one phone call – at the south pole.

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As I’ve previously mentioned – ipadio is a bit of a hit in the Antarctic, and over recent weeks we’ve seen a number of ipadio users use our services to broadcast messages back home whilst completing various challenges on the southern continent.

Just a couple of days ago the latest challenger completed her quest – the amazing Felicity Aston became the first solo woman to cross Antarctica via the south pole.

An amazing achievement – and one she kept all of her friends, family and fans up to date with using ipadio’s phonecasting tools. And her fans were certainly keen to cheer her on – every day leaving comments on her phonecasts to let her know how proud they are of her.

If you’d like to listen back to Felicity’s journey, check out her channel page or listen in the player below.

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Here at ipadio HQ the weather has been rather rotten on our first proper day back after Christmas – but we can’t really complain. Over the last few weeks we’ve had three completely separate ipadio users all trekking across the Antarctic.

Felicity Aston has just become the first woman to trek solo across the continent. Of course, she was keeping us all informed using ipadio throughout and you can listen back to her broadcasts here.

Meanwhile Jordan Romero, who you may remember became the youngest person to climb Everest a few months ago has now added another mountain to his impressive record – remarkably he’s managed to scale Mount Vinson, the tallest peak in Antarctica! You can hear his updates here.

And finally explorer Mark Wood is still making his way to the South Pole in his bid to become the first person to walk to the north and the south pole back to back. You can follow his updates on his website here. What’s cool (er, no pun intended) too is that he’s using ipadio voiceform technology to enter the temperature and wind speed when he calls in – so you can really imagine what conditions are like.

It puts me moaning about the rain and the wind on Waterloo Bridge this morning into perspective, really!

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We’ve spent much of this week preparing for and attending the Melcrum Internal Communications conference, where we worked with our friends at Homeserve to present on how they use our FieldTalk product to engage and communicate with their people on the ground. Find out more by listening to me speak to my colleague Liz about it:

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There’s currently a huge food crisis taking place in East Africa, with many thousands of people starving. Oxfam are currently on the ground there providing vital aid and relief. Janna Hamilton is in a refugee camp in Kenya and has been phonecasting the latest on the situation there. I’ve embedded the broadcast below:

If you’d like to donate to the appeal, you can do so on the Oxfam website.

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This morning when browsing the ipadio website I spotted Andrew Harris, who as we speak is on ‘Le Tour de Arnhem Land’ – a 9 day 740km mountain bike trek across Northern Australia. It sounds like quite the challenge!

What’s cool is that Andrew has a satellite phone so is able to use ipadio to broadcast updates from his trip right back to his blog, so his readers can follow him every step of the way. On his ipadio page he writes that ipadio is “the best way of letting everyone know that we’re all alive, well, and having fun” – and we couldn’t agree more!

You can hear Andrew’s updates in the player below:

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Click is the BBC’s flagship technology programme – broadcast in Britain on the BBC News Channel and internationally (to 300 million viewers!) on BBC World – and on this week’s programme, I was interviewed about podcasting. The feature was exploring whether or not ‘corporate’ podcasting is killing the bedroom podcasters, and it was the podcast that I produce in my spare time The Pod Delusion that caught their attention.

You can watch the report in full below. And if you feel inspired, why not sign up to ipadio and give podcasting a try?

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There’s a year to go until the UN’s planned Arms Control treaty, but preparation work is already underway with Amnesty International out in New York pushing for what they want to see in the final draft.

In their latest phonecast Oliver Sprague talks about the treaty so far – and what Amnesty like, and what they think it’s lacking.

Still, with a year to go we hope they’ll keep us up to date on how the treaty progresses!

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Yesterday saw the kick off of a new challenge to scale Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa. This time the challenges are from Empowerment Through Adventure – a group of 15 adventurous men and women with Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s Disease and their 15 climbing companions.

As of lunchtime (UK time) today, they’re currently at 13,000 feet – with about 6000 feet to go. You can follow their progress by listening to their phonecasts in the player below:

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In a couple of weeks time it’s the next Melcrum Members Event, and as we’ve done before we’re working with them to help promote the event, and find out more about who will be speaking.

So here’s the first interview with Richard Bridge from Top Banana, the agency who have been working with the Gucci Group to improve their internal communications:

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