Geoversity Podcast

Can technology really make cities safer for women, or does it risk creating a world of constant surveillance? 

In this episode of the Geoversity podcast, we discuss a recent paper by ITC researchers that explores this question through the Bengaluru Safe City Project in India, a large-scale initiative featuring thousands of CCTV cameras, AI-powered facial recognition, drones, body-worn cameras and emergency safety islands.

We explain how the researchers tracked the concept of 'safety' as it evolved through several stages, and how a project originally designed to protect women became a broader system of urban surveillance and management.

Along the way, we explore the risks of algorithmic bias, visual profiling and the assumption that certain appearances signal criminality. We also question whether surveillance and emergency buttons can deliver meaningful protection without addressing deeper social inequalities and institutional failures.

This episode challenges the idea that technology is neutral. Who defines safety in a smart city, and whose interests does it serve?

Discover why building safer cities requires more than cameras and algorithms—and why freedom, dignity and cultural change must remain at the heart of the conversation.

image credit: Hustvedt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In this episode, we explore the world of OpenStreetMap (OSM) and the global volunteer community behind one of the world's most widely used open mapping projects.

We're joined by Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, who is an OpenStreetMap Board Director & Deputy Secretary, and Dr Barend Köbben, cartography specialist, from ITC.

In this extended conversation, Héctor explains how millions of contributors collaborate to build and maintain a living map, navigate disagreements, and balance local knowledge with emerging AI-assisted mapping tools.

From the ethics of mapping sensitive locations to the relationship between volunteers and commercial users, this is a wide-ranging conversation that examines the technical, social, and governance challenges shaping OSM today and in the future.

When the floodwaters recede, the real story is only just beginning.

In this episode, Chen Song explains her PhD research on the long-term impact of the devastating 2021 Ahr Valley floods in Germany.

While headlines focused on dramatic rescues and destroyed infrastructure, this conversation shines a light on the quieter, often overlooked reality of recovery for older adults.

Drawing on  surveys and conversations with older residents, healthcare professionals, caregivers and community organisations, Chen uncovers how disasters continue to shape lives long after the media has moved on. From anxiety, loneliness and disrupted healthcare to remarkable resilience and community solidarity, this episode reveals the human side of disaster recovery.

As climate change drives more frequent extreme weather events and Europe's population continues to age, understanding the needs of older adults has never been more important. Chen's research challenges us to rethink what recovery really means: not just rebuilding homes and roads, but restoring health, connection, dignity and a sense of belonging.

Welcome to the second episode of the Geoversity Podcast!

In this episode, host Brad Hillas speaks with Professor Monika Kuffer from the Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation at the University of Twente about her work in urban planning, geospatial data, and its connection to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Professor Kuffer discusses how her research contributes to making cities more inclusive, livable, and sustainable. She explains how geospatial data can track inequalities, improve urban decision-making, and empower local communities. She also highlights how data can give a voice to vulnerable communities most threatened by climate change and why, despite advances in AI-powered models, human verification remains essential.

Her personal stories from her career provide eye-opening insights into the challenges of urban deprivation and spatial inequalities.

Topics covered:

• How slum mapping helps urban planning
• The impact of evictions and climate policies on vulnerable communities
• AI and citizen-generated data for more accurate urban analytics
• Why global datasets often fail to reflect reality in deprived areas

Listen now to explore how data, technology, and community engagement are shaping the future of cities worldwide!

You can also watch the video version of this episode in our first Vodcast! The episode is enriched with footage from Monika's personal archive, along with powerful photos from various sources, bringing these stories to life. Check out our vodcast here.

In the newest edition of Geoversity podcast, Jelle Ferwerda, research coordinator at the ITC faculty, will take over hosting. He speaks to special guest Professor Debra Roberts. 

Professor Roberts is Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban in South Africa. She was Co-Chair for Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the former Acting Head of the Sustainable and Resilient City Initiatives Unit at EThekwini Municipality.

In this episode, Debra and Jelle discuss Open Science - the idea of making scientific research, data, software, and educational resources freely accessible to everyone - and how it impacts collaboration between researchers from the EU and the African continent. 

You can also see this interview as a video podcast; check it out here on Geoversity.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. In Part 2, Jelle and Debra tackle one of Professor Roberts’ most controversial topics: Climate Overshoot. Come back to Geoversity soon to check out that episode! 

We now know a lot about the physical impacts of climate change.

But now that we're on track to overshoot the Paris Agreement's target of 1.5 °C of global mean temperature rise, what about the social and humanitarian impacts? 

In this week's episode of Geoversity podcast, we highlight research that looks into some of the factors influencing human and social climate overshoot impacts.

What is the call to action for scientists, governments and humanitarians? Listen now to find out. 

And click here to read the original paper, titled The human and social impacts of climate overshoot.

This podcast has been partly scripted by generative AI. 

In April 2015, Nepal experienced a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that killed thousands of people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes.

In the reconstruction effort that followed, notable differences in the safety of rebuilt homes and businesses emerged. 

In this episode of Geoversity podcast, we discuss recent research that looks into the factors influencing these varied safety outcomes.

Why did some build safe houses, while others did not?

That's the question posed by researchers Aditya Pradana Ganda Saputra, Nina Schwarz and Eefje Hendriks in their paper, Identifying factors influencing housing safety in post-earthquake reconstruction by households in Nepal.

Want to listen to more episodes of Geoversity podcast? Check out previous episodes here.

In this first episode of Geoversity podcast, I talk to Dr Fenna Hoefsloot about her PhD research, which was entitled Knowledge Infrastructures for Just Urban Futures - A Case of Water Governance in Lima, Peru. 

In this new series, we invite PhD candidates to come in and deliver their layman's talk, to make their research accessible to a wide audience. 

Our first guest is Brian Masinde. 

As humanitarian organisations increasingly use GIS, big geodata, and AI to guide aid delivery, concerns are growing about privacy, bias, and accountability.

In this episode, Brian explains his research on protecting demographically identifiable information (DII) within geo-intelligence workflows while upholding humanitarian principles.

He discusses the risks of demographic profiling, group privacy harms, and biased data-driven systems, along with practical solutions such as geodata triage, auditing, and causal methods for bias detection.

His research highlights how humanitarian organisations can move from reacting to data harms toward embedding privacy and accountability into technology design from the start.

Check back here soon for more layman's talks from PhD candidates.