This episode of Exploring Digital Spheres takes us to Mauritania, a country in Northwest Africa, to explore the intersection of technology, gender, and migration. It features in-depth interviews with two remarkable refugee women, Fadimata Aicha Walet Mohamed Issa and Moueny Abdoulwahab, who are talking about their experiences as women in the tech industry in Mauritania.

In dieser Spezialfolge erkunden wir die Möglichkeiten von Open Educational Resources (OER) als neue Lehr- und Lernmethoden. In Zusammenarbeit mit der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) entwickelte das Alexander von Humboldt Institut (HIIG) eine Toolbox, um Schulen, Universitäten und Organisationen einen Ansatzpunkt zur Auseinandersetzung mit möglichen Zukünften zu geben. Diese Folge thematisiert, wie OERs speziell an Schulen einsetzbar sind und wie Lehrkräfte so mit ihren Schüler*innen (Zukunfts-)Denken trainieren können.

In the last episode of Season 2 we visit Mexico City to explore the potentials and challenges of sustainable digital entrepreneurship to mitigate climate change.

How can digital skills and technologies be trained and implemented in remote regions where the rainforest is of particular importance for local development?

Digital platforms are fundamentally changing the world of work. While the platform economy opens immense opportunities for flexible, gainful and convenient entrepreneurship, the precarious livelihoods of workers and service providers often remain unaddressed.

In this episode we shine a light on the transformation of a former military camp into the Innovation and Training Park (ITP) Prizren in Kosovo, an aspiring hub for innovation, economic development and digital transformation in the city and wider region. We discuss the connection between spatial development, innovation and digitalisation at the ITP with local experts.

At the SENIA, Benin’s first AI conference, our team had the opportunity to talk to local experts about the possibilities of digitalisation for the improvement of the agricultural sector and its working conditions. Christian Grauvogel, Marie Blüml and Georg von Richthofen travelled to Benin in July 2022 to discuss the opportunities and risks of applying Artificial Intelligence in sustainable entrepreneurship in Benin and Francophone West and Central Africa. They had the opportunity to interview Seth Ayim, operational manager of the international NGO TechnoServe, and Theodore Gboyou, data scientist and regional manager of the digital platform Digital Rice Africa in Benin.

In a collaborative project researchers from Oxford and Berlin developed an index as the first economic indicator of industry-specific risk assessments related to Covid-19, based on financial disclosures of US companies. The index can provide valuable real-time information about economic risks associated with the pandemic, and it has already been featured in Oxford University News, the Washington Post, and the Wirtschaftswoche. In today's special episode we welcome the data scientists Dr. Fabian Stephany and Dr. Fabian Braesemann from the University of Oxford. The two speak with HIIG Ph.D. student Bronwen Deacon about their recent work on the CoRisk-Index. We look forward to your feedback on the episode. Please feel free to provide comments and let us know whether you would like to hear more about Social Data Science research in the future.

How do you build Digital Momentum? How do you stay visible? As the music industry is changing, big music labels are reinventing their branding strategy. This podcast explores the resulting consequences in terms of power-relations and digital flows. Lorenz Grünewald-Schukalla is a project manager in the project team Third Engagement Report, where he deals with questions of civic engagement in the digital world. Besides that he is researching the digital mediatization of music business and music culture. Therefore his Ph.D. project is about the changing relations of consumer brands and music from a media and communications perspective. He is managing director of the German Association for Music Business and Music Culture Research.