We spoke to Jacqueline Goldin, Falling Walls Engage Winner 2021, about her project and how the Falling Walls Engage pitches helped her raise funding.
What is your project about?
“Diamonds on the soles of their feet” is about collecting information on water in the invisible rivers under the ground. It is about ‘ordinary’ citizens who collect information about water in very remote rural wells in the Limpopo Province, one of the poorest provinces in South Africa. But it is not just about data, data, data – it is also what people carry in their hearts and heads – such as dignity, hope, pride. The farmers and citizens who are collecting this data really have diamonds on their soles of their feet – rich, valid and reliable data that we simply could not get any other way. This is all about taking science out of the library, out of the laboratory – and into life.