During the first weeks of February, several members of the Waterproofing Data project team from Warwick visited São Paulo.

Work Package 1 (WP1) lead, Dr Nate Tkacz, was invited by Professor Maria Alexandra Cunha, the Brazilian co-investigator of the project, to spend two weeks at the Getulio Vargas Foundation as a visiting scholar. During this time, Nate delivered an intensive one-week course on ‘Data and Society’, exploring theoretical context and methods for data collection that are employed in the Waterproofing Data project. In addition, Nate was also able to advance the analysis of the data collected for WP1 and established important preliminary results.

Professor João Porto de Albuquerque, who is Principal Investigator of the Waterproofing Data project, also delivered a week-long module at Getulio Vargas Foundation on ‘Space, Digital Participation and Public Policy’. This was aimed at analysing key geo-spatial methods and tools used by the research team. The approach to the collection, curation and analysis of geo-spatial data that the project is following was presented and students on the course also delivered small-scale projects. João was supported by IGSD Research Fellow Vangelis Pitidis.

On 1st February 2020, João and Waterproofing Data researchers including Dr Fernanda Lima, Dr Rachel Trajer and Dr Mario Martins, presented part of the project’s analysis results at a community event hosted at the neighbourhood of M’Boi Mirim in São Paulo. Later in the month, Vangelis, Fernanda, Mario and Dr Livia Degrossi led a collaborative mapping event at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, with the participation of eight members of the same community.

Find out more about the Waterproofing Data project.

The Waterproofing Data team along with local community members in M’Boi Mirim, Sao Paulo	Vangelis Pitidis and Livia Degrossi in a participatory mapping activity with community members from M’Boi Mirim, Sao Paulo