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Digital Planet: How Nancy Pelosi’s flight was tracked

Factual: Science & Nature

Flightradar24_CROPi.jpg

09/08/2022 GMT

How Nancy Pelosi’s flight was tracked

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, How Nancy Pelosi’s flight was tracked

How Nancy Pelosi’s flight was tracked and watched by 2.92million people

FlightRadar24 – how is it possible to track flights?  Also, new push to get women into fintech in Ethiopia and Wikipiano and call to compose our Radio Theatre performance piece

Were you one of the 2.92million people who was watching Nancy Pelosi fly into Taiwan on FlightRadar24 bypassing Chinese bases in the South China Sea as it approached Taipei?  It’s one of the most popular flight tracking sites in the world and uses open standard surveillance technology which allows planes to transmit their location data to anyone with a receiver. As the receivers are fairly inexpensive it now has a network of more than 30,000 and collects data from other sources too like satellites.  These data sources aren’t blocked which is why so many flights can be tracked (although they are not always named).  It’s often used by fans to track celebrities, especially sports stars, it also shares information with air crash investigators.  Ian Petchenik from FlightRadar24 is on the show to explain more.

New push to get women into fintech in Ethiopia
Digital payments in Ethiopia are just part of a much wider push by the government to get the country financially online.  Currently most payments – including fuel bills - are paid by cash. Wairimu Gitahi, Global Communications & Knowledge Management Analyst at the United Nations Capital Development fund tells us about a new project the “Women’s Digital Inclusion Advocacy Hub.”  The project is aimed at women, so they don’t get left behind in Ethiopia’s fintech revolution.

Wikipiano – a call to compose our Radio Theatre performance piece
Digital Planet is celebrating its 21st birthday this September and we’re recording a special show in the Radio Theatre (you’re all invited).  To help us party we’re asking our listeners to compose a special multimedia performance of Wikipiano that will be premiered on the night in the Radio Theatre. You don’t have to be musical – just log onto Wikipiano.net and add text, video, images, compose new music (if you can), add actions for cyber soloist Zubin Kanga to perform on the night. Zubin helps Gareth add to the score and invites all our listeners to have a go themselves. The piece was composed by Alexander Schubert.


The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Ghislaine Boddington.

Studio Manager: Bob Nettles
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz

(Image: FlightRadar24. Credit: https://www.flightradar24.com/)

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