Dear friends, Alberto here.

First, a few Open Visualization Academy updates:

• We’re editing our next course, Visualization with R’s ggplot2 Package and AI Tools, by my UM colleague Ray Balise. Ray works in biostats, and has plenty of experience teaching introductory statistics and also visualization; I think you’re going to enjoy his course very much. We’ll probably release it in the first few days of April.

• Towards the end of April, we’ll announce new instructors and courses that will be released in the second half of 2026 and the first semester of 2027. We have 15+ courses and tutorials in the production pipeline, covering topics that range from introductory statistics to advanced cartography.

If you’ve been part of the visualization world for a while, Giorgia Lupi needs no introduction. Today, Giorgia is a partner at Pentagram, and her distinctive design style and her insightful reflections have influenced a whole generation of designers.

When I invited Giorgia to Friends of the Open Visualization Academy, my goal was to focus on her new book, Speak Data, co-written with Philip Cox, but we ended up talking about many other things, such as projects we’ve worked on together, and the impact that “AI” has on our practice.

I hope you’ll enjoy it: