Ep. 17 - Working towards a future where people matter over profit

05/18/23 • 41 min

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The guest of Episode 17 of the podcast The Road Less Traveled is Jean Linis-Dinco, a human rights activist, academic and data scientist from the Philippines. She is currently doing her PhD in cybersecurity at the University of South Wales Canberra, focusing on the analysis of government propaganda, and disinformation in the context of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar.
Already a good communicator by training, Jean also did the Master’s Programme in Human Rights and democratisation in Asia Pacific (APMA), which made her start working towards a more progressive approach to human rights, one that also ecompasses social political economy.
She works towards a future where people matter over profit. “To ensure that AI does not become a tool of oppression, we must strive to democratize its ownership. By promoting open source AI technologies, cooperatives, worker-owned enterprises, we can encourage widespread access to AI resources and prevent monopolistic control by rich people. And this collective ownership empowers the working class to participate in AI decision-making and benefit from its advancement.”
She also sees the potential in AI becoming a force for good and having the power to revolutionize the global workforce. “The present is our battleground and the place where we construct the very foundation of the future that we desire.”
Her advice for someone who is keen to work in the field of machine learning, or data governance, or just machine learning in general and doing programming: “As a human rights graduate, you actually already have every soft skill that the market needs.”
Regarding human rights education, she stresses that the best tool to use is the one that is working and that we should avoid treating technology as the be all and end all solution to every challenge. What we need is culturally relevant pedagogy: developing educational materials and curriculum that resonate with the students cultural backgrounds and experiences.
She concludes by reminding everybody to keep the poor in mind especially when making decisions related to AI.

Previous Episode

Ep. 16 - Being curious keeps me energised!

Our guest, Inge Jacobs, is currently leading sustainability for Mars Food, focusing both on human rights and livelihoods as well as climate and water use in Mars Food supply chains. In her job, she uses not only the lenses of human rights but also the ones from sustainability, gender and ecology.
Curiosity is the red thread throughout her career. She keeps looking at new opportunities and networks, and kept on learning, adding a master in public health to her Master in Human Rights. The master gave her the theoretical framework and knowledge, and the opportunity to study with people from different countries and different backgrounds.
What she wishes she had known when she graduated: there are so many different possibilities to work on human rights. “I would like to do the Master again, now with all the experience that I have from my professional life, because I would look at it in a very different way.”
Inge has 3 main pieces of advice for graduates interested in working for the private sector:

Be curious! Being curious is what helps Inge stay energized and learn new things.
Connect with people and build your network! Building your network is critical not only for accessing different roles, but also for learning new things and learning about innovations. “If you build your network and you connect with people, I think it will really help you broaden your scope and your view on what is possible and what could be done.”
Be flexible and adaptable! Do not be afraid to change! Do not be afraid to try different things. If it doesn't work, you just do something else.

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Ep. 18 - Housing is a human right!

The guest of Episode 18 of the podcast The Road Less Traveled is a perfect example of the beauty and depth of non-linear paths. She worked as a civil servant, for the United Nations and as a freelancer. She finds her joy when taking the hat of an activist: Maite Arrondo is an expert on the right to adequate housing and has been working for the past 8 years as a consultant on innovation in housing policies.
When she had to choose her theme for her master thesis, Maite noticed by reading the newspaper that housing was an emerging issue and decided to focus on it. Since then, her passion for the issues of housing and homelessness has never diminished; she continues to work on the connection between the international human rights based approach towards the right to adequate housing and its realisation at the local level.
Her passion for innovations in housing is obvious when she recalls the moment six or seven years ago when she learned for the first time about the model of Community Land Trust (a model of affordable housing and community development) in Puerto Rico, in Caño Martín Peña. She works for the Barcelona municipality, which is like a policy laboratory with their focus on housing and their creation of networks. One of the things I like best about my work is that I am always feeding my curiosity with peer learning exchanges. I get a chance to learn about other contexts, solutions and innovations.