Media – Basanta E.P. Thapa

Expert quotes on the return to Free and Open Source Software in Munich’s city government

14 May 2020

In May 2020, I provided a few quotes to a ZDNet story on Munich city government’s return to an open- source-software-first strategy. As we had written a blog post on debates and practices of Free and Open Source Software in German government a few weeks ago, I was able to give some insights. I am … read more »

Expert quotes on AI in government for Tagesspiegel Background

13 May 202025 September 2019

In September 2019, I gave a short interview to the German newspaper Tagesspiegel on Artificial Intelligence in government. A few of my quotes actually made it into the articles. 1. Article in the printed edition of Tagesspiegel (in German, no paywall): 2. Article in the specialist publication “Tagesspiegel Background Digitalisierung & KI” (in German, paywalled): … read more »

Interview on digitalisation, AI, and Big Data in Erfurt

23 October 2018

In summer 2018, I taped a long interview on digitalisation, artificial intelligence and Big Data for the online format Erfurter Stubenexpress. Erfurter Stubenexpress is produced by the local political party “Mehrwertstadt Erfurt”, in which some friends of mine are involved. When they had heard about my edited volume “(Un)berechenbar? Algorithmen und Automatisierung in Staat und … read more »

“Populist, Reformer or Hardliner?” – Short article on Philippine President Duterte

15 July 2016

I have written a short four-page piece on the Philippines’ new president Rodrigo Duterte for WeltTrends, a Potsdam-based monthly magazine on international politics. I keenly observed the Philippines’ presidential campaign (mostly via my Philippine Facebook friends) and early on, Rodrigo Duterte’s platform caught my interest. How he likened himself to “democratic autocrats” like Russia’s Vladmir Putin or … read more »

Blogging about Big Data in government for the Swiss Society for Administrative Sciences

20 April 201914 January 2016

I wrote a blog post for the Swiss Society for Administrative Sciences (SGVW), titled “Big Data in Administration: Opportunity with Pitfalls”, which provides a cursory overview of Big Data in government. For the most part, the article points out different existing applications for Big Data in the public sector and provides examples for each. I also … read more »

Potsdam local newspaper prints short piece about my PhD project

15 April 201627 September 2015

After my interview for the Potsdam university magazine, the journalist asked me whether I wanted to write a short piece for the Märkische Allgemeine (MAZ), a local newspaper for the Potsdam region. The format called “My Project” appears regularly in the MAZ science pages. It entails only 1700 characters, has to be written from a first-person … read more »