Internationality is Gold

by: Sahel Zarinfard (Austria)

At first I didn't know what to expect. It would be my first time to participate in an international program and also be part of an international group that comes from all around the globe. As Yusuf Kalyango introduced the scholars to each other via e-mail for the first time, I was very curious: Where do the other 16 scholars come from, at which Universities do they teach, are there other investigative reporters and digital storytellers and how will we spend the next six weeks together?

It goes without saying, that every single scholar is rich of knowledge and more than willing to share his or her journalistic know-how with everybody else. During our short term academic program we were not only able to learn more about journalism and academic research from our lecturers at the Ohio University but also learn a lot from each other. By doing so, we share our experiences beginning with "In my country..." – and be amused about the similarities and differences in our cultures.

This is an interactive map of all SUSI scholars from 2017. One klick on every participating country reveals the names, the universities, the research focuses and the best moments of all 16 scholars, who I rather would describe as best academic friends forever.
 



While creating this map, I wanted to know where the former scholars come from and if there is a common pattern during the selection process of every years' scholars. It wasn't hard to gather the data, as the former countries and participants are named at the University's website. So I uploaded a Dataset of countries, the number of scholars of each country, the years they were attending the SUSI program and also their names. The variety and internationalism of SUSI is clearly visible.