Who are the people who designed our digital world? And how did they come up with these ideas in the first place?

In a new podcast from the BBC World Service, we discover the inspiration behind the digital technology that shapes our world by bringing together the people who invented it with the teenagers who use it.

Each episode of World Wise Web combines revealing stories from leading innovators, shrewd questions from teenagers who are passionate about technology, and archive material revealing how little we anticipated the profound changes this new digital world was about to bring.

A lively 12-part series of nine minute programmes, each episode focuses on different aspects of digital technology, as we hear the true stories behind inventions from the iPod and mobile phone, to Google Search and GPS.

These one-to-one conversations are carried out by teenagers from around the world - from America and India to South Africa and Nigeria. Aged 14-18, each inquisitive and tech-savvy teen has known no other world than this digital age, so what advice do they want from the inventors of this new era? And what words of wisdom might the inventors have for them?

The series host is 17 year old Anna Zanelli, a budding designer from London, who meets Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod, in the first episode. She says: “I really want to be a designer when I’m older so imagine what it was like when I got to meet the inventor of the iPod… His advice was amazing - about not giving up - I think that’s such key advice for a designer especially young designers within an age where you think that almost everything has been done, but there’s that hope that you can make a change and a difference.”

In the programme, Tony Fadell tells Anna about the inspiration behind the iPod: “I was starting to become a DJ - I had to carry a hundred or a thousand CD’s and they were very heavy… It was a problem for me… that’s where you get most of the great ideas - fixing problems. You know necessity is the mother of invention… You have to remember, the first ten years of my life of being in Silicon Valley was failure after failure after failure but I learned through each one and kept going.”

Using the BBC and other archives we’ll also hear journalists, experts and the public talking at the time, giving their first reaction when the technology was launched.

Stephen Titherington, Senior Commissioning Editor, BBC World Service, says: “What sets World Wise Web apart is that these stories are part of a conversation between old and young, between those who invented the digital world and those who consume it - these global teenagers ask the questions they want answered. And they want to learn as much about the person as they do about the technology - learning as they go that people change the world not machines.”

World Wise Web launches as a podcast on 10 January and will also air on the BBC World Service starting 11 January and continuing weekly. The series is co-produced by BBC World Service and BBC Rewind.