Woodworking and “making”
This summer, when I was in Nepal, I took some training on woodcarving. Many of the reactions to my woodcarving work surprised me, so I wrote an essay on the Karkhana blog about traditional crafts in Nepal and/vs the new maker community: “Kathmandu Mini Maker Faire: An opportunity and a challenge.” I would love if […]
#LoFab (Locally Fabricated) Design
One of the issues I have with Design is how inaccessible it often seems. Many of the examples we study as “good design” are barely affordable to the masses in the developed world, forget those in the developing world [1]. So when I saw this video about a locally fabricated hospital in Haiti, I had […]
Nepali Paper & Dhaka
As I was working on my project for the Yantra Art / Science exhibit last year, the Karkhana.asia folks challenged me to create an abstract visualizations that evokes traditional Nepali art. The challenge was to connect technology (= modern) with traditional art and handicraft (= the ancient). I chose to create a visualization that referenced […]
After the Earthquake
About a year ago we decided to move to Nepal as we apply to graduate school. This turned out to be a critical decision. We are fortunate to have survived the many earthquakes that have shook Nepal this past month, and be perfectly positioned to respond. I have been working nonstop at Kathmandu Living Labs […]
Remembering the Lost Sculptures of Kathmandu
Over the last few weeks, I have had the incredible pleasure of working with artist and research Joy Lynn Davis, to support her work documenting the theft of stone sculptures of Kathmandu Valley. The theft, which has gone on since 1970s, is quite outrageous. (Though it is heartening that some of the sculptures are making […]
Making Data more Useful
When I shared the idea of the Front-End Class I’ll be teaching soon, Nama Budhathoki (the Executive Director of Kathmandu Living Labs) got really excited! He listened to my reasons for hosting the class (see last blog). But then, he said: that’s fine, but you aren’t getting to the substance of it. How will the […]
Come make awesome web apps with me!
Know a little javascript, but want to learn how to build real-world web applications? Come learn how to build interactive front-end web apps using the technology invented to build Instagram and Facebook. Thats the hook I’m using to get beginner front-end developers in Nepal interested in a new course I’m teaching. How does it sound? […]
The growth of OpenStreetMap in Nepal
Saturday was Open Data Day, and KLL (Kathmandu Living Labs, where I am a fellow this year) co-organized an event all about Open Data. I will probably write more about the event, but for now, I wanted to share a presentation that Nirab Pudasaini and I made about the growth of OpenStreetMap in Nepal. See […]
Hammock-driven Development
When I moved to Nepal in August, I started working for Ona as a Data Scientist. The team besides me is in Kenya and the US, so I have been working remotely. I hadn’t coded full-time since all the way back in 2008, but it has been fun going back into full-time programming. One of […]
Yantra 3.0: In which I become an artist
I got to introduce myself as an artist for the first time the other day. I was in New Road, taking images of Dhaka cloth for a visualization project I contributed to Yantra 3.0, which goes something like this: An objective of Yantra’s art/tech festival is to unshackle artists and technologists in Nepal, to free […]