It is estimated as much as 80% of data contains geo-referenced information. So, a lot of information can be displayed through maps. Digital maps allow easy ways to present large amounts of data and reduce complexity. Activists have found creative ways to use maps, but also development organizations have to deal with a lot of spatial information. Using geo-referenced through maps can improve transparency, and yet not so many organizations use it.

Difference of digital maps
Digital maps have brought three major changes.

1. Digital maps, in contrast to paper maps, can be combined with all kinds of data even in real time.
2. Nowadays, everybody can access huge data from the public domain and combine these with maps.
3. Citizen maps are created through voluntarily worldwide effort and participation, are freely available and offer new ways for transparency.

The Tactical Tech Collective has a great guide for beginners and comes up with a good description of why maps are so helpful:

“Advocacy organisations worldwide face great challenges. One of these is how best to communicate and disseminate information to communities, staff, founders, governments and other organisations in a world saturated with information, media and advertising. They may also need to keep track of complex and diverse information in their own work.”

By the way, there was also an interesting online forum by New Tactics on ‘information activism’ with many examples and exciting discussions.

But why are make maps so different?
Anders Peders has come up with some simple points in his presentation “Geomapping Making Invisible Data Visible”:

• Recognition: Ooh that’s the place we are talking about!
• A feeling of connection: It’s around the corner!
• Connecting the dots (topics) on complex issues.
• Engagement: This has to change! I want to help out.

Maps for activism and campaigning
Maps have a long history and since the early days maps have been used for many purposes, such as to show changes through bygone times and to manipulate them for propaganda. But never before it has been so easy for individuals and groups to use maps for own purposes. The Economist goes a step further and writes “mapping technology has matured into a tool for social justice.”

There are various projects using maps worldwide and here are a few examples:

Green Map System has engaged communities worldwide to map green living (nature and cultural resources). In one case, a map was created for the environmental hazards and challenges in the greater Banjul area in Gambia. Other maps from Europe are already interactive.

“Eight Maps” has been mapping people in San Fransisco, who donate for a campaign against a law that supports sex marriage, trying this way to put them on the spot. This example also shows how far such campaign might go into privacy issues.

Another great example comes from Worldmapper:

Ecological footprint of each country in the world

© Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).

Another nice, albeit printed map series, is an Atlas of Radical Cartography, “a collection of 10 maps and 10 essays about social issues from globalization to garbage; surveillance to extraordinary rendition; statelessness to visibility; deportation to migration.” My favorite map is of the only walking track left in Manhatten, where you are not followed by surveillance cameras.

One key role will be played by the OpenstreetMap project. Other than Google Maps, it offers all geocoded information for free and is, equally to Wikipedia, an open project. I am working these days on a local politics project for transparency. The richness of geodata was astonishing and very helpful. It all started with the city of London and is now a worldwide movement. I went to the annual State of the Map conference in Amsterdam, learnt a lot about mapping and filmed some interviews. It was great to meet finally Mikel Maron, foundation member of OpenStreetMaps, who gives fascinating examples of how open maps benefit people living in informal areas in India.

Fredy Rivera from Colombia describes the dangerous work of mapping in Colombia and how they plan to provide better geodata to indigenous groups in the rising competition around water resources.

Arun Ganesh has done some incredible mapping efforts for the city of Chennai in cooperation with the local administration. He even went a step further and build a great website to find public bus connections and organized the printing of maps to post them on local bus stations.

No related posts.

The other day I stumbled over this news piece: “The phone that feels the flu before you do” – a company offers a service, where one can find out how intensive the level of flu is in their area. So, basically, you can get “Open Source Intelligence” via mobile phone. I find this quite fascinating because of the potential it entails for other usages and it also says a lot about the future power of information.

Different to older times when you went to your PC to search for information such as a definition on Wikipedia, in the future you can access it anywhere, and you also: a) get real time information about what happens around you and b) you get to participate collectively to refine information, for example through mobile crisis mapping. So imagine mobile phone users engaging in such a collective information gathering for all kinds of purposes. But who will own the information and could it be guaranteed to be open and reliable?

In the case of the flu alert, the company “will say, for instance, that 8 percent to 14 percent of the people in your ZIP code have respiratory illnesses, representing a “Moderate” risk level.” Personally, it would not influence my decision to leave the house or not. To me, the case of the flu alert highlights the potential to use such services for other purposes also in other areas.  I find the use of widely available valuable information for the public very interesting. All sorts of available intelligence is broad to you on your mobile phone. So is the case of fixmystreet.com, from which I can report damages in my neighbourhood and report it to the responsible person; or I can check product information through a common source written by consumers in the supermarket. More importantly, I could have access to environmental data on the corner I am standing at? I can foresee a lot of potential, but also I am worried about locked information, no clarity of ownership and too little access to information.

In the flu alert example, the company “gets the information on disease levels from Surveillance Data Inc. — which gets its data from polling health care providers and pharmacies.” It sounds almost as a mashup, where you combine different data sources. I imagine the future lies in combining intelligently different open available data resources, for example through RSS/feeds or API to provide open intelligence.  Such steps are some interesting startups around climate change, which offer API (Application Programming Interface) for different sorts of environmental data – it simply means, that you can use their data for your own purposes or services and combine different data streams. For example, the World Bank offers “114 indicators from key data sources and 12,000 development photos” and AMEE, the climate change startup,  offers an “open platform for measuring the energy consumption of everything” (Check www.openeco.org/ for more on sharing data to measure climate change).

Google found a much easier way to publish the flu intensity in an area by simply analyzing and mapping search request for flu related issues. So Google will not only make revenue by advertisement, but through offering various of these kinds of services in the future. But frankly, I am a bit concerned about it since a lot of information resides within companies and it is in many cases not publicly available or cannot be used by nonprofits. In the case of Google, the potential to analyze society behaviour is unlimited. If they focus, for example, on the local level, all kinds of patterns and differences can be found out (e.g. politics, consumerism or health).  It seems to me that the future asset will be this sort of information power. The challenge can be easily seen when you compare OpenstreetMap and Google maps for the cities of Kabul, Afghanistan (Google – Openstreetmap) and Luanda, Angola (Google – Openstreetmap). In both cases the open source approach for maps offers better maps done by volunteers. (Thanks to aidworkerdaily.com for the inspiration!)

I think we have just started to tap on the potential of these rich resources, but also will need a lot of further discussion on what type of information needs to be openly available.

No related posts.

Most of my readers know how enthusiastic I am about the potential that Internet has; being this either social web, social media, web2.0 or however you want to name it. But if I look back at what has happened in the development field during the last year, I have to say that frankly I am quite disappointed about how little has been happening. I expected the disruptive potential to be more exploited. Particularly in development organizations hardly anything has changed, and the wave of open networks, transparency or the two way conversation is rather a ripple.

Little innovation from development organizations
I remember the participants’ enthusiasm during last year’s web2fordev conference in Rome and I have also seen some interesting initiatives since, but the strong push towards taking advantage of the potential is not there. Critically, you can say that yes, the world bank has been playing a little bit around with blogs, UNHCR celebrates itself with Google map for fundraising, and Eldis has now a community, as well as Development Gateway has now ratings for articles, but here, in Germany, I cannot even find one convincing example from dozens of organizations working in the development field. But I know these are at least some first steps.

What are the reasons?
I think the challenges especially within the organizational context are multi fold. Just to name a few:

• Technical challenges: Almost all development organizations rely on software systems, which do not offer social media tools. Sharepoint is just one example of how it will never work to have an open knowledge sharing environment.
• Being it the communication department, the IT or any other departments – many share their refusal to a participative web. Staff should be offered to decision themselves what to published and which tools to use. No way! – for some people the social web scenario is still a nightmare.
• It is not on their screens! Most key players or management teams have not yet understood the potential of the web in total, although development organizations work internationally and engage in numerous networks. The Internet is still seen as a necessary evil. Generation gap?
• No real commitment for donor harmonization. One key pillar of aid effectiveness should be to exchange knowledge as open and transparent as possible. There are hardly any attempts to open data resources between organizations and for the public domain. Most content is still copyright, although it is for non-profit.
• Adaptation: It simply takes much more time. The learning curve of organization all together is simply really slow. The slower the bigger the organizations are.
• Open knowledge sharing is still not high on the agenda. Information silos are common and knowledge is kept closed north and south of the development field.
• The fear and distress to engage online, plus information overload and too little training for staff to show the potential to publish and exchange knowledge in networks.
• Too little interest to engage in dialogue and recognize the importance of local knowledge. User-generated content means that I also am able to listen as an organization.

What could be different?
A will to go public with the work, knowledge and problems of development organizations. Instead, they sat around in Ghana for aid effectiveness and have achieved so little. One step would be to acknowledge that problems are too complex, open channels of organization and use new ways to work together. Being it a Wikipedia for development or different sub themes such as Water wiki. But knowledge is preserved and kept in organizations. Information sources should be combined from different perspectives, instead, each organizations has its own websites. There is not even an attempt to combine data resources between bigger organizations. If you look for instance, the wisdom of crowd potential is not yet exploited. For project development or problem solution, hardly anything has been tested or experimented. In recent years amazing market and exchange places in all kinds of fields have been established, but the development sector still offers very little.  I will elaborate that further in another post.

An explanation
In my opinion the easiest explanation is that the social innovation within or through the web flourishes best in open autonomous environments. This can be rarely offered in an organizational context. If you look at the most fascinating projects and initiatives of the last year, since the web2fordev conference, you will see that they are all grass root driven – mobile phones in Africa, human rights issues, citizen journalism, mashups or networks for development. So I wonder what could then be the role of development organizations to participate in the social innovation? How do you think web2.0 in development organizations will progress? Do you agree with the above statement or was I too critical?

No related posts.

Some weeks ago I wrote a post about a new initiative by UNHCR, which promotes the use geodata mashups to provide information about refugee camps all around the world. Today, I saw another initiative by the World Bank called geo.worldbank.org: “Our work around the world.” Again, it is a nice service, but does it offer much more than the website?

Paul Currions points it out well in his post that the UNHCR map “is useful because it starts to give people an idea of one of the key issues for refugee management and the complexity of running a refugee camp. The first thing I notice is that every time I click on a link for more information, it tells me how much it costs to buy school or farm equipment, and gives me a link to UNHCR fundraising so I can cough up right there. I think we should be doing better. Much, much better.”

I agree with Paul Currion and wonder why these services do not offer the following:

• Integrating other available sources of information to offer a broader perspectives on the given context. There are many other potentially valuable resources, which could enrich the visualization.
• There should be ways to contribute information, for example, by refugees themselves or beneficiaries of World Bank projects. Couldn’t mashups used to get feedback and to monitor projects and their impact?
• Gapminder.org illustrates nicely what further ways are possible to simplify complex data.

Interestingly, there are a lot of grassroot initiatives offered, which are often developed and maintained by a few people and sometimes even one person who accomplishes much more.

1. Tunesia Prison Map
   Sami Ben Gharbia put up together, already a while ago, the frightening Tunesia prison map, in which he has been using google maps. It shows where political dissidents have been locked up by the Tunisian government.
2. Theyworkforyou
   They work for you was developed by Rob McKinnon, whom I had the change to meet back in London. This inspiring project has a sister in the UK “that aims to make it easy for people to track the activity of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Parliament.” Basically, this site aggregates information already available in a form that makes it more transparent to follow the engagement of parliamentarians and topics. I am really impressed about his work and looking forward to see more of his ideas realized in the future.
3. UNdemocracy
   This is again a website which aggregates available information and offers it in a transparent way. It focuses on an easy access to the transcripts of the General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations. The same people also did the Public Whip, a page tracking the voting record and attendance of parliamentarians in the UK.
4. Ushahidi
   This website was quickly realized through the recent Kenya crisis and maps the reports of the post-election crisis with all its different incidents such as riots, deaths, property loss, government forces etc. Kenyians can report such cases through their mobile phones by sms. This truly is a bottom up mashup.
5. Mapping the election conditions in Zimbabwe
   
   This is a similar initiative, which documents all types of manipulation during the latest Zimbabweans election. The map is a valauble resource and Sokwanele has been doing an impressive work for human rights throughout the the last years. Ethan Zuckerman wrote an in depth post about this project.
6. Healthcarethatworks
   Another Google map mashup, which shows the New York City wide status for hospitals and its disproportionate impact that recent hospital closures have on low-income communities.

Some more mashups in the enviroment field are summarised on Global Voices by Juliana Rotich. Lastly, Netsquared has on this year’s conference a mashup event, where promising new initiatives are presented.

No related posts.

It is quite exciting to see that the United Nations and their different branch-organizations are slowly harnessing the potential of the web in innovative ways. I have previously blogged about the idea of a huge interesting UN aggregator project and the UNDP water wiki during the last web4dv conference. To offer openly information sources and especially to visualize information is essential to understand our complex word from different perspectives.

Gapminder is a great example for that. And another one is the tactical technology collective with this booklet: Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design.

It is promising to see that UN organizations such as UNEP follows the same steps and offers the Atlas of Our Changing Environment on Google Maps:

Through illustrations, satellite images, ground photographs and powered by Google Maps, this interactive media depicts and describes humanity’s past and present impact on the environment.

Today also UNHCR announced a mashup with Google Earth Outreach program, “which punveiled a powerful new online mapping programme that provides an up-close and multifaceted view of some of the world’s major displacement crises and the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the victims.”

Here is the actual site, but you need Google Earth to load it.

Patrick Philippe Meier writes about it: “the next step for an iRevolution is to enable refugees to access this information on a regular basis. This need not require high-technology. The information could be broadcast by radio, for example.” I believe it will become even more effective when refugees themselves can add information and update those visualized contexts from their perspective.

One other excellent source was recently launched, UNdata, with over 55 million records and comprehensive statistics.

No related posts.