Mick Zijdel

I currently co-run Catalyze Impact’s incubation program for new AI Safety organisations. This includes recruitment, selection, program design, logistics, and participant support.

I make heavy use of my software engineering skills to automate repetitive tasks, and I make amazing spreadsheets.

Photo from “Mary: A Gig Theatre Show”. Credit: Carla Watson

I sometimes work as freelance sound designer and composer.

Theatre

• Mary: A Gig Theatre Show: Sound Designer
  • Bedlam Theatre (January 2024)
  • Edinburgh Fringe (August 2024)
  • Traverse Theatre (December 2024)
  • Duns Play Fest (May 2025)
  • Edinburgh Fringe (August 2025)
• 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee: Edinburgh Fringe (August 2024)

Music

• Ethics Town Podcast: Theme Composer

A conversational AI assistant for discovering shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Developed using FastAPI and React TypeScript. Supports semantic search over festival data, category filtering, show recommendations, and RAG-powered chat responses with ChromaDB vector storage.

Made because I was frustrated reading through the ~3500 shows in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme and I just wanted to ask the program what I should go see.

Spotify Tools allows you to set listening goals for your favorite artists, albums, and tracks. The application syncs with your Spotify listening history and helps you reach your goals by generating personalized playlists based on your preferences and what you need to listen to. It also gives you detailed statistics of your listening history.

Unfortunately, Spotify no longer verifies small apps from individual developers, so it is not publicly accessible. If you would like to try it, please contact me with your email and I can give you access.

A soundboard for improv comedy shows. Developed using Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Gemini 2.5 Advanced in Nextjs. Supports multiple soundbanks, search, arming tracks, Google Drive sync, and multiple sounds per pad.

I taught sessions on AI Agents, Adversarial Attacks and AI Safety strategy and organised social events, such as a Welcome Event, Murder Mystery, Lightning Talks, and a Scottish Ceilidh.

As a student, and for a little bit after, I took part in many productions as production manager, producer, technician, and actor.

Shows marked * took place in the Bedlam Theatre

Festivals

• Paradok Platform - Fringe Director - August 2024 (Just the Tonic during the Edinburgh Fringe)
• Bedlam Festival - Festival Director and Co-Programmer - January 2024 *
• Paradok Platform - Fringe Coordinator - August 2023 (Just the Tonic during the Edinburgh Fringe)
• Bedlam Festival - IT Manager - January 2023 *
• Give it a Go Week - Venue Manager - January 2023 *
• Paradok Platform - Treasurer - August 2022 (Just the Tonic during the Edinburgh Fringe)
• Freshers’ Plays - Creative Director/Coordinator - September 2022 *
• Welcome Week - Creative Director/Coordinator - September 2022 *
• Festival of New Theatre in Scotland - Programmer - March 2022 (Teviot Underground)
• Scottish Online Student Drama Festival - March 2021 (Online)

Shows

• Glangtivity - Director - December 2023 *
• The Welkin - Sound and Projection Manager - October 2023 *
• Guards, Guards! - Composer - October 2023 *
• Julius Caesar - Production Manager - March 2023 (Teviot Debating Hall)
• Into the Pantoverse - Producer - December 2022 *
• The Rip Current - Co-Sound Designer - August 2022 (Pleasance Above)
• Ondine - Producer - March 2022 (Teviot Underground)
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Production Manager - March 2022 (Assembly Roxy - Central)
• Bedlam Haunted House - Composer/Sound Designer - October 2021 *
• Songs from the Bedlam - Creative Director - October 2021 *
• Catching Up - Tech Manager/Sound Designer - August 2021 (theSpace @ Symposium Hall)
• Zoogmalion - Producer - February 2021 (online)
• Trials and Tribulations - Lighting Designer - January 2020 *
• The Odyssey in 60 Minutes - Co-Director/Writer - January 2020 *
• William Shakespeare’s Christmas Carol - Sound Designer - November 2019 *

Acting

• Princess Ida - April 2025 (Pleasance Theatre)
• Glangtivity - December 2024 *
• Biolanthe - April 2024 (Summerhall)
• HMS Pinafore - April 2023 *

Committees

I was President (2022-2023) and Business Manager (2021-2022) for the Edinburgh University Theatre Company, who fully operate the Bedlam Theatre, and Treasurer (2022-2023), President (2021-2022), and Secretary (2020-2021) for Theatre Paradok. During my time, we reopened the theatre after the covid-19 pandemic and I led the efforts for our return as a venue to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023.

I took on maintenance of the Edinburgh University Theatre Company’s website. I upgraded it from Rails 5 through to 8, and learned most of my Rails chops along the way.

I wrote my dissertation on Ancient Rock Music: The sound stalactites make when hit by a rubber mallet. This project was inspired by a visit to Luray Caverns, Virginia, where I heard the “Great Stalacpipe Organ”, which produces sound by hitting stalactites with a rubber mallet. I created a simulation using finite-difference and modal methods of the sound the stalactites make by approximating them as a cantilever bar with variable diameter, undertook a field trip to record the sound of stalactites myself, and made a virtual instrument so you can play the instrument in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).