Online Training Course Using Data for Effective Communication

Dr. Simon Hodson Executive Director, Committee on Data of the International Council for Science (CODATA), France Simon Hodson has been Executive Director of CODATA since August 2013. Simon is an expert on data policy issues and research data management. He has contributed to influential reports on Current Best Practice for Research Data Management Policies and to the Science International Accord on Open Data in a Big Data World. As part of his CODATA role, Simon is closely involved in a CODATA initiative to improve the coordination of standards for data integration and interoperability for interdisciplinary research and in the coordination of the CODATA Data Policy Committee Additionally, Simon leads or participants in numerous projects, Working Groups and Steering Groups. Currently, this includes the following roles: Project Director, African Open Science Platform Project

Chair, European Commission’s Expert Group on FAIR Data, which is preparing a report and guidelines on how to make FAIR data a reality; Co-chair, GEO Data Sharing Working Group, to which CODATA has made a longterm contribution; Simon is also is a member of the Board of Directors of the Dryad Data Repository, a not-for-profit initiative to make the data underlying scientific publications discoverable, freely reusable, and citable; and he sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of CESSDA ERIC, the European data infrastructure for the social sciences. He was co-chair of the OECD Global Science Forum and CODATA Project on Sustainable Business Models for Research Data Repositories. Simon has a strong research background, as well as considerable project and programme management experience: from 2009 to 2013, as Programme Manager, he led two successful phases of Jisc's innovative Managing Research Data programme in the UK.

Richard Mahapatra Managing Editor of Down To Earth magazine. Has been reporting from and on rural India for the past two decades.
Email : richard@cseindia.org

Debadatta Basu joined Central Pollution Control Board in 1976 after completing Master of Science in Chemistry from West Bengal, India. He further obtained Diploma in Environmental Science and Technology (equivalent to MS) from Delft University, the Netherlands. He also did his PhD from Jadavpur University. He was resource person for a workshop on UN sponsored programme on Universal Codification at Johanesburg, South Africa. He has published around thirty technical documents and papers in various journals in India and abroad. After retiring from Central Government, he joined Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi as an advisor for training in India and abroad.
Email : basu@cseindia.org

Rajit Sengupta Has close to 10 years of experience in working on editorial teams of national newspapers and magazines including Mail Today and Hindustan Times. Currently, with Down To Earth magazine and a member of CSE’s Environment Data Centre, which churns out data stories, factsheets and interactives and conducts workshops on data journalism.
Email : rajit@cseindia.org

Kiran Pandey Programme Director of the Environment Resources Unit at CSE.  With over two decades of experience in documentation and communication services, leads the India Environment Portal and CSE’s Environment Data Centre. Author of the annual book “State of India’s Environment: In Figures”, the country's most authoritative annual publication to make a statement on the state of environment through data analysis and meaningful infographics. Promotes digital literacy and data-driven communications in India, Asia and Africa
Email: kiran@cseindia.org

Nalaka Gunawardene trained as a science writer, he has worked as a journalist, broadcaster and development communicator since 1987. He initially worked as a science journalist in Sri Lanka's English language newspapers, and also freelanced for radio and television. After winning three national awards for outstanding science journalism, he moved on to the development sector, where he worked as an editorial consultant, journalist trainer and communication advisor.

In 1996, he co-founded TVE Asia Pacific a Colombo-based regional not-for-profit media foundation communicating sustainable development issues through TV, video and the web. As its Director since 2002, he has scripted, directed, produced or executive produced several dozen Asian and global documentaries

He is the author/editor of several technical books related to science, technology and development, most recently Communicating Disasters: An Asia Pacific Resource Book.

He was part of the British and South Asian team of researchers associated with the Media South Asia Project that studied the nature of the satellite television revolution which began in the early 1990s and transformed South Asian societies and cultures.

He is especially known for his analytical writing on the impact of Information and communication technologies for development (ICTs) on developing Asian societies. He has co-authored National Human Development Report – Promoting ICT for Human Development in Sri Lanka Report (UNDP, 2004).

He is a regular speaker or panelist at international conferences on public communication of science and technology, development journalism, public interest broadcasting and ICT for development.