Under the coordination of Assoc. Prof. Tuğba Taşkaya Temizel at METU Information Systems, Graduate School of Informatics,“Data Analytics Without Borders” team consisting of Özgün Ozan Kılıç (Information Systems), Mehmet Ali Akyol (Information Systems), Oğuz Işık (City and Regional Planning), Banu Güney Kılıç (Information Systems), Arsev Umur Aydinoglu (TEKPOL), Elif Sürer (Multimedia Informatics), Hafize Şebnem Düzgün (Colorado School of Mines) and Sibel Kalaycıoğlu (Sociology) has received the Honorable Mention Award in the”Labor”category of the D4R-Data for Refugees Challenge.
This study aims to shed light on various aspects of refugees’lives in Turkey using mobile call data records of Türk Telekom, which is enriched with numerous local data sets. The study showed that refugees are highly mobile as a survival strategy, a significant number of whom work as seasonal workers. Most prefer to live in relatively cheap neighborhoods, close to city transport links and fellow refugees. The ones living in low-status neighborhoods appear to be introvert, living in a closed neighborhood.
In “D4R- Data for Refugees Challenge”Competition organized in cooperation with Turk Telekom, TÜBİTAK and Boğaziçi University and with the support of international organizations such as UNICEF, UNHCR, International Organization for Migration; a total of 157 researchers from four non-governmental organizations, three public institutions, two research laboratories and 57 academic institutions from 19 countries submitted their proposals.
The statement of work intended to be helpful for policymakers in finding real-time solutions for refugees’well-being and welfare can be found at http://d4r.turktelekom.com.tr/Content/Documents/d4r-proceedings.pdf. In addition, further information on the detailed analysis of the study and on the project can be found at the official page of D4RMETU.