Welcome.

My name is David Valenta and I am based in Ottawa, Ontario in Canada.

Currently, I pursue MA studies in Economics at the University of Ottawa and I am looking to start PhD studies in the near future. My interest is in Development Economics, Applied Microeconomics, and Behavioral and Experimental Economics.

I also collaborate with Salanga, where I previously worked as a Product Manager and Data Scientist. My primary responsibility during the 5 years there was leading the design and testing of Kinaki, Salanga’s software for development project monitoring, evaluation, and learning.

You can find out more about me by downloading my CV or at my LinkedIn profile.

Personal Projects

3D Printed Items

One of my interests is 3D printing and I spend some of my free time designing unusual but useful objects. If you are interested in any of my 3D designs, feel free to write me an email at david (at) valenta (dot) dev.

Cost-Optimizing Sample Size Calculator for Clustered Surveys

Using this app you can calculate a cost-efficient sample size for your clustered survey. This enables you to find the cost-minimizing combination of the number of clusters (villages or other sampling units) and the number of interviews for desired strength of your data collection.

If you believe this approach could be beneficial for your project, do not hesitate to contact me. See the contact section below for my contact information.

You can find the calculator on the Sample Sice Calculator page.

I made this app in R programming language and the Shiny package for creating web apps.

In the future, I hope to research how to expand this calculator by incorporating the value of information in order to provide even better sampling guidance.

Open Educational and Surveying Box

I designed and constructed a prototype of an electronic device for remote data collection and information dissemination. The device can play audio files and one can interact with it using multiple buttons, and audio responses can be recorded all while being placed by itself in remote areas. Potential use cases include education and information provision around development projects as well as collecting feedback.

Find out more about it on the Educational Device page.

Videos with Maps

I also made a few videos with maps I generated in R. See them on my Youtube channel.

Like this one about voting in the UN in 2019.

Contact

You can contact me using my email david(at)valenta(dot)dev or you can connect with me on LinkedIn.