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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!
There’s enough love to go around— issue #71
They say love can overcome any differences, but recent media trends may say otherwise. What does this mean for our society as a whole?
How a bad Valentine’s Day turned into a Bollywood data project
The team behind our latest story on Bollywood shares how they researched the films’ dataset, used large language models to classify genres, and crafted the visual design for this bespoke longform story.
Did a four-eyed historian invent the Mandarin script? — issue #4
Hello，你好，வணக்கம் Singapore has always favoured linguistic pragmatism, where we learn a language for its utility. Increasingly, that language is Mandarin. People often tell me, "You should let your child take Mandarin as a second language. It's better for her." No offence is intended
Rayson’s Journey to the Maps: Interning at Kontinentalist
Rayson, who wrote this well-received story on rising sea levels, shares his intern experience at Kontinentalist.
Reduce API loading time: Never forget to Cache!
Kontinentalist serves quite numbers of traffic everyday, and thus user experience is really important for us. One of the UX factors apart… How did Kontinentalist reduce API loading time by using Cache
How to tell data-driven stories
We conducted a workshop for our writers recently, and below are some of the highlights.
Visualising a team bonding retreat
Inspired by the Dear Data project where two designers sent each other visualisations describing their week, our team decided to try…
Of piracy, deaths, and medicinal wildlife parts in Asia — issue #3
Ahoy! It’s been a really fruitful month for us, and we’re so proud to have collaborated with two different partners to shed light on crucial issues concerning Asia. Naomi collaborated with TRAFFIC - the wildlife trade monitoring network - to look at how traditional medicine practices and beliefs
Playing House: the Rent-a-Family business in Japan
Our writer, Kathy, shares her thoughts on the thriving phenomenon in Japan
How are maps used in video and tabletop games?
In our new series, we sat down with Joceline, our UI/UX designer, and Griselda, our multimedia designer, to nerd out about maps and games!
How is climate change affecting major Asian cities? — issue #2
Hello there, The issue of climate change continues to provoke heated debates, but how well do we understand the impact it can have on our lives here in Asia? This month, our intern Rayson, looked at research on rising sea levels and mapped a story that shows us a future
Humans of Kontinentalist: Naomi
In this edition of Humans of Kontinentalist, we catch up with Naomi, our resident writer and Myth Buster!
How rock paper scissors is played around Asia
We all know the rules of rock paper scissors (RPS). Paper wins rock, rock wins scissors, and scissors wins paper. There’s even an…
Humans of Kontinentalist: Vinita
Today we caught up with Vinita, our resident editor and writer, and the only actual mother on the team (soft toys, fur babies, and other…