Archive for the ‘hot’ Category

Imagery Pre-disaster Let’s Do Better

This week is the first expert meeting regarding Space Based Technology and Crowd-Sourcing being hosted by UN-SPIDER. I am not attending, but from the Twitter stream (#spidercrowd) it appears there has been a lively discussion on using satellite information and crowd-sourcing for disaster response. What I believe is often missing from these types of conversations is preparedness. Maybe it is presumptuous of me to discuss preparedness when imagery isn’t available freely every time for every disaster.

July 6, 2011  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: hot, license  2 Comments

Off to Join the Circus!

Well not really off to join the circus, most of you probably already know about my employment change. I’m not working for the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. I always referred to working on OpenStreetMap projects full-time as “running off to join the OpenStreetMap.” That isn’t to say people haven’t done it previous, I think it is just is something many would love to do and few have figured out how to. Much like joining the circus, though you trade in your clown nose for a GPS. Or at least it can take a bit of a leap of faith in someways.

June 27, 2011  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: hot, OSM, Uncategorized  5 Comments

Disaster 2.0, Innovation in the Disaster Response Space

Today the United Nations released their report “Disaster Relief 2.0: The Future of Information Sharing in Humanitarian Emergencies.” Two members of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team were interviewed for this report, myself and Nicolas Chavent. Also of course many other from friend and partner organizations were interviewed as well.

For anyone interested in open data or new methods of crisis response I recommend you read the whole report. For others, well a seventy-two page report might seem like a bit much so what might be key is the recommendations. Key is the idea that information communities (called V&TC in the report) came together after the earthquake in Haiti to help. Much of this revolved around the sharing and collection of data. The value of this type of activity to make a difference was clearly shown. The real question though is how do you make this happen again? And how can this fit into a framework that makes sense from the perspective of the large organizations as well as the informal communities.

March 28, 2011  Tags: ,   Posted in: Crisis Mapping, haiti, hot  No Comments

Quick Japan Editing Stats for OpenStreetMap

I was putting together some really quick editing stats about Japan post earthquake/tsunami.  I realized I should probably share them with the larger community rather than keep them to myself. 218 different individuals have editing in Japan in OpenStreetMap.  Those editors have edited 389,431 nodes (this includes adding/removing/changing) .  This has all happened through 1,409 [...]

March 16, 2011  Tags:   Posted in: hot, OSM  7 Comments

Talk: Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in Haiti

Back in the beginning of October I attended the International Conference on Crisis Mapping. I gave a talk titled “Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in Haiti: from Crisis to Capacity Building.”

November 17, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: haiti, hot, OSM  2 Comments

OpenStreetMap and Crisis Response Why it is Often About the License

OpenStreetMap’s goal is to make a free map of the entire world. This goal happens to make it extremely useful for crisis response at times, but is not the main thrust of the community’s effort.

November 16, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: hot, OSM  13 Comments