Discover how citizens are shaping a sustainable future through their contributions and understanding of the SDGs.

Join host Tej as she delves into the world of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and their impact on creating a better future. In this episode, she welcomes Nuria, an erudite young lady with extensive knowledge in geography, GIS, and remote sensing. With a PhD in Library and Information Sciences, Nuria is an assistant professor at the Compliants University of Madrid and an affiliated researcher at the University of Yale. Her expertise lies in organizational sustainability and bibliometrics. Together, Tej and Nuria explore the significance of SDGs and their role in addressing global economic, social, and environmental challenges. They discuss the OS DG (Open Science for Sustainable Development Goals) initiative, which aims to increase awareness and empower individuals to contribute to the SDGs. Noria explains how the OS DG tool classifies texts and PDFs into different SDGs, allowing researchers, students, and citizens to understand the alignment of their work with the goals. They also delve into the citizen science initiative launched by OS DG, which aims to capture the diverse perspectives and understandings of SDGs across different communities. Noria highlights the challenges of representing marginalized communities and discusses ongoing efforts to ensure broad representation. Throughout the conversation, Nuria emphasizes the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in their research. The machine learning approaches used in the OS DG tool help classify texts and improve its performance over time. They discuss how AI plays a crucial role in analyzing and understanding the different perspectives and concerns of citizens. The ultimate goal of their research is to use the information collected to create awareness, inform policymakers, and bridge the gap between public understanding and policy implementation. Nuria explains how this bottom-up perspective can help identify gaps in public knowledge and guide awareness campaigns and policy decisions. By giving citizens a voice, the OS DG initiative aims to shape a sustainable future driven by collective action.