Georgina Jánoki

January 2024

Geogina arrived in Austin, Texas last week and is looking forward to starting her classes and meeting her mentor in the coming weeks. Georgina is investigating: How to empower users of online travel planning platforms to express their genuine desires themselves and foster a more flexible, inclusive environment for all?

During her stay in Austin, she plans to interview accessible and traditional travel businesses, as well as people living with disabilities and their families.

February 2024

Georgina’s travel diary

I had my first meeting with my mentor the week before and he requested a paper to write from me about researching what inclusivity means and what it means to me. I will work on that during this week as my mentor said he can send me contacts after receiving this paper. He feels this could give me a better basis for my research and help construct the interview correctly.

I also started my courses, which are the following:

• Social construction of disability: this will include events at the disability center at the university, as well as interesting conversations about disability, genders, races, and age as well.
• Machine Learning/Data Analytics Edge AI: a lot about data and models for analyzing these data, as well as using these algorithms on edge devices.
• Software Engineering and Design Lab: this is a very comprehensive course that is useful for any kind of solution later because we are learning how to design a bigger software from the beginning until the end.
• Facilitative Leadership

So, altogether, there has been some progress and updates, also I will have more connections for my research from the events from the course as well.

March 2024

Georgina’s travel diary

In the last 2 weeks I was working on a small paper and to construct my interview structures as requested by my mentor and I am waiting for his suggestions and his connections right now, while testing the interview.

Afterwards I already have some interviews secured with diverse backgrounds. I also coordinated an interview with The Director of Destination Kystlandet for the time I am back in Denmark.

My courses are going quite well, I really enjoy them and they are very useful for the future in one way or another. I am learning a lot from the Social construction of disability course, we have very interesting topics and discussions going on each week. I participated in the social networking birthday party of the Disability Culture Center, where I have made some good connections for the project and had a very nice time with the people there.

I also went on a weekend trip to New Orleans for the celebration of Mardi Gras, which was amazing and checked out San Antonio as well, that is even more charming than Austin.

May 2024

Georgina’s travel diary

At the end of her journey, Georgina summarizes her experience in this video. She reflects on the courses she has taken and what she has learned. She has also conducted interviews for her project and achieved most of her goals: 1) gaining a deeper understanding of disability and inclusivity, 2) meeting people from different backgrounds, and 3) grasping inclusivity in the tourism sector to apply directly to her work.

Georgina’s main takeaway is the importance of looking at things from different perspectives. Because in any field, even disability culture, sometimes people can look from only one perspective. She enjoys exploring different perspectives and she believes the best outcomes come from critical thinking and being open-minded.

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