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Welcome to Kawan—our vibrant community of data heads and storytellers. We’re all about improving data literacy and sharing nuanced stories about Asia. Come hang!

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Kontinentalist
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silver linings — issue #61

A couple of weeks ago, I moved to Dunedin, New Zealand, or Aotearoa, as it is beloved in Māori, to pursue a Master’s degree in Geographic Information Systems. I had to transfer at the Auckland International Airport, where I went through a few rounds of biosecurity checks. Before you

Zafirah Zein
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Countering climate doom

When we decided on “silver lining” as the theme of our latest newsletter, I thought it apt to highlight positive stories about the environment to counter the deluge of bleak, and at times terrifying climate news. Yet, while I was keen to find data or visual stories on positive climate

Recent Posts

Kontinentalist
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Women hold up half the sky — issue #15

Was there a defining moment in your life when you decided you might be a feminist? Personally, I don't know when mine was. Looking back, there were fleeting moments ever since I was a young girl. I studied in a convent school, and I remember being perplexed at

Isabella Chua
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Eighteen levels of hell (Part I): Conceptualising our game

Kontinentalist created our first-ever narrative game, Hell’s Apprentice, based on the Buddhist-Taoist folklore of the eighteen levels of…

Isabella Chua
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Humans of Kontinentalist: Avel

It’s cliché, but we learn from our interns as much as they (hopefully) learn from us. One such was Avel, a design intern with us during…

Kontinentalist
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Have you eaten rice? — issue #14

The first time I tried Korean tteok-bokki, I hardly knew whom I was eating it with. We'd just moved into our new house, and it was one of our first meals together—the same week Singapore's COVID-19 lockdown closed all our favourite dine-in restaurants. My housemates

Mick Yang
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Conducting a virtual data storytelling and visualisation workshop

With a bonus peek into our writers’ dietary habits.

Isabella Chua
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Humans of Kontinentalist: Hiang Ling

Hey Hiang Ling! Tell us a little bit about what you do in Konti.

Siti Aishah
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Thoughts on Making the Migratory Bird Map

One of my work goals of 2020 is to work with Mapbox GL JS and Scrollama JS to create a decent scrolly-driven map. Born to fly: The life…

Kontinentalist
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Noticing is an act of love — issue #13

How much do you know about the everyday objects around you? As a history major, one of my favourite topics is cultural and material history. So common are the things that we use and see everyday that we rarely think of their pasts, and how simple objects can connect multiple

Isabella Chua
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Recommending our favourite Asian movies with dingbats

When Parasite won Best Picture for the 92nd Academy Awards, I, along with my friends and the Asian Twitter community, was euphoric. We…

Isabella Chua
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Humans of Kontinentalist: Lee Hoon Hee

We caught up with our lovely editorial-marketing intern, Hoon Hee, over the phone to bring you this edition of HOK!

Kontinentalist
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Can data speak for Mother Earth? — issue #12

"Trees have long been trying to reach us. But they speak on frequencies too low for people to hear."  —Richard Powers, The Overstory Remember when the lockdowns began in March? Amidst panic, we still found it in ourselves to marvel at how COVID-19 was helping the environment heal.

Pei Ying
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How COVID-19 has changed the data storytelling landscape

We’re at the midway point of 2020 and, quite unbelievably, the world has been brought to its knees by the invisible yet pervasive COVID-19…