What a way to start the year!
We are happy to share the first SPRING Alumni Latin America joint paper collaboration, spearheaded and led by Dr. Himanshu Shekhar (SPRING Alumnus 2010/2012), entitled “Are leading urban centers predisposed to global risks- An analysis of the global south from COVID-19 perspective“, has been published in the Volume 121 issue of Habitat International! This is in co-collaboration with fellow Alumni: Malvika Rautela (2016/2018), Mehmooda Maqsood (2017/2019), Dr. Ricardo Paris (2015/2017), Rafael Maximiliano Flores de León (2016/2018), María Fernanda Romero-Aguirre (2015/2017), Marygrace Balinos (2006/2008), Mariana Estrada Velázquez (2016/2018), Gita Salehi Amri (2011/2013), Tamanna Rahman (2017/2019), Augustine Yaw Asuah (2016/2018), Jilan Hosni (2015/2017), and Dr. Md Shahinoor Rahman (2009/2011).
The paper examines 20 cities from 10 countries from the global south (India, Pakistan, Brazil, Guatemala, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Iran, Bangladesh, and, Ghana), to analyze and understand how urbanization can predispose them to global risks including the pandemic due to the cities’ inherent vulnerability and exposure, among other drivers.
You can read the paper (with full access til 30 March 2022) at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2022.102517
Direct link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197397522000145
Congratulations to Dr. Shekhar and to the fellow Alumni, truly global!
For those of you who interested to know on how this paper is finally published, here is the brief background:
In 2019, the SPRING Alumni Chile organized the first SPRING Latin America Alumni event, Winter School 2019 in Valdivia, supported by the DAAD with funds from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and with a friendly assistance from Wilo-Foundation. It also has the support of the SPRING Programme at TU Dortmund and the Universidad Austral de Chile. One of the goals of the event is to strengthen the SPRING Alumni Chile Network. This could be through organizing alumni events, possibly, joint publications, and other activities.
When COVID-19 hit the entire world in 2020, the planned Alumni event that will be held in the Philippines was put to a halt. The organizing committee, then, decided to pursue the alumni event but in a form of a virtual event with the concept, SPRING Cross Regional Dialogue. The event was supported by Alumniportal Deustchland through their platforms: video conference via Zoom channel and live streaming via their YouTube channel, which was a success!
At the same time of the organization of the 2020 event, the idea to do a joint publication was picked-up again. After almost two years of data gathering and writing, and several submissions and peer-reviews later, the first joint paper collaboration was published!
These initiatives are just a few of many possibilities for SPRING Alumni Chile/Latin America engagement. We love to hear from you!
Please visit and contact us at: https://springalumnichile.com/