Book Sprints for Humanitarian Response

Over the past week I’ve been at Google in Mountain View working on a book sprint for OpenStreetMap. I had no idea when the week started that we were going to write a book in a week, nor that it was possible to do that. I also wasn’t familiar with FLOSS Manuals which operates under the premise that not only should software be open and free but the documentation should be as well. After the experience of the week, I believe the humanitarian technology community could benefit from a similar type of book sprint.

October 22, 2011  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Crisis Mapping, OSM  3 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

Authoritating Data – What Makes Some Data Authoritative?

As I wrote about in the FortiusOne blog, last week was Redlands GIS Week. My post there concentrated more on the future of crowd-sourced geographic data in crisis response and ways to more quickly turn that data into information. That is something that I’ve spent quite of bit of time thinking about through my work on GeoCommons, as well as my work with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. I spent so much time thinking about enabling crowd-sourcing of information and teaching people to edit in OpenStreetMap that something I’ve never thought much about is the stamping of data to make it authoritative. During a break-out group at GIS Week we were supposed to discuss ‘the Issues with VGI.” Nothing really new to me as far as issues came out of the discussion, one realization did occur was I have previously made data authoritative or authoritating it as I have started saying tongue in cheek.

February 15, 2011  Tags: , ,   Posted in: crowd-sourcing, OSM  2 Comments

State of the Map in the U.S. This Year

This year I had the privilege of both attending my first State of the Map Conference and hosting the first State of the Map U.S. Conference. For those unaware State of the Map is the annual meeting of the OpenStreetMap Community. This year it took place in Girona, Spain over three days. The first day [...]

December 13, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: OSM  No 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

OpenStreetMap in the First Month After the Haiti Quake

Who made most of the contributions to OpenStreetMap in the first month after the earthquake in Haiti? Was it those already participating in OSM or those that signed up specifically to help after the earthquake?

September 6, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Crisis Mapping, OSM  12 Comments

CrisisCamp/CrisisCommons Movement

Since the earthquake in Haiti the amount of people looking for ways to help has exploded. CrisisCommons has organized CrisisCamps all over the United States and parts of the world where people can get together and build applications to help.

January 23, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: CrisisCommons, OSM  One Comment