KIPP Blog | Week 2 – Getting Up To Speed – Knowledge Integration and Project Planning: Data, Inequality and Society (2022-2023)

It has been a rush catching up on readings, learning how to use Learn to learn😂 and setting up a work/study routine. I am tired but I’m satisfied and excited to be in school again. The 2-Day intensive sessions for the Exclusion and Inequalities course were really intense, but the insights that came out from it all?! It’s going to be difficult to decide on a topic area.

I don’t like not being certain and I don’t want to work on something and then halfway through feel like no, I should’ve done my project on this because I am more interested in it. I am afraid of that regret.

Some insights from the 2-Day Intensive Session I’m considering for the project (interest area is food systems, in particular, consumer and retailer side):

“We build the future using data from the past”
- In food systems, what kind of data is used?
- What does this actually mean for the project overall and how can I avoid relying too much on history to paint a picture of the present and ultimately the future?
“Many people don’t want to be represented under their social categories such as race or gender. This affects data sets and produces data gaps => bias”
- Okay, so how do I categorise the data? Or do I forego this and just accept biased data?

There is a lot of information to synthesise, because even as I write these points, I’m not sure how to do a project on food systems from a data inequalities perspective. It is still early days. But there is a lot to be done before I feel settled in the content and on a direction and I’m glad that this sentiment came through in the sessions (the red sticky notes on the Miro board).