Fernanda Odilla in a conversation with the Brazilian website Interesse Nacional

Photo by Ben Kolde on Unsplash

BIT-ACT research fellow Fernanda Odilla talked to the Brazilian website Interesse Nacional about her research on bottom-up initiatives to fight corruption in Brazil. 

Odilla also spoke about her career first as a reporter for daily newspapers covering corruption scandals and then as an academic conducting research on punishment for corruption and accountability mechanisms.

The researcher is currently looking at anti-corruption grassroots initiatives that develop their own technological systems - some of them deploying artificial intelligence - and, at the same time, make large use of existing digital platforms, mainly social media. 

Odilla’s research shows that Brazil is a fertile ground for studying the role of digital media in the anti-corruption struggle. According to her, the main challenge is not exactly finding skilled and motivated citizens who have been developing creative and innovative solutions, mainly to oversee public expenditure and hold politicians and governments accountable. It is, instead, how to convince ordinary citizens to use these tools. 

Read the piece and watch the interview with Odilla (in Portuguese only).