Technology Innovators Focus on Re-mapping Haiti

Good Radar Oreilly story available on the global outpouring of effort to get Haitians and relief workers UP TO DATE maps and other tools of the country and cities in the wake of the Jan 12 earthquake. Below is an excerpt from Radar Oreilly, a great hub for technolgy innovators.

These stories reflect the growing demand and interest in digital Crisis Mapping, of which Ushahidi has taken an early, strong role in Haiti.

Further below see an announcement of an upcoming March meeting in San Jose, CA of tech innovators that will focus on the Haiti quake -- key lessons, issues, challenges, etc. (Let's hope the Haitians will be fully represented and their concerns driving the conversation.)

Haiti: OSM and Sat Imagery for Free iPhone App

By Brady Forest @brady

Crisis Mappers from around the world have been working around the clock to create maps and other tools for relief workers in Haiti. The earthquake caused tremendous damage to the road network and updated maps are necessary to enable food and volunteers to traverse the island.

The volunteer-driven Open Street Map project has become a central data source for the Crisis Mappers. It is regarded by many as the most up-to-date map of the area. It combines UN damage assessment, digitized imagery, Public Domain Topos and other base data. In the wake of the tragedy Google quickly released Haiti data gathered from its MapMaker program. DigitalGlobe has made its satellite imagery of Haiti freely available as well (as did GeoEye).

Soon, there will also be a free iPhone app with maps of Haiti coming to the App Store. Jeffrey Johnson worked with a small company, TrailBehind, Inc., to adapt the company's existing ( offline mapping app, Gaia GPS,) to provide offline maps to relief workers. It combines Digital Globe (.5m resolution), GeoEye (.5m resolution updated on 1/13), and OpenStreetMap (constantly being updated).

see full story here.

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Haiti: CrisisMapping the EarthquakeJeffrey Johnson (Open Solutions Group), John CROWLEY (STAR-TIDES)
9:40am Wednesday, 03/31/2010

General
Location: Ballroom III - VI
After the earthquake in Haiti, a community of crisis mappers started to prove what can be done when gifted minds channel their energies into a collective effort. Often working across increasingly artificial boundaries of sector, organization, and country -and sometimes bending or breaking “The Rules” – the community learned new lessons about how large scale efforts interact with the legalities of the commercial and governmental world. At the same time, people working in the places called “black” figured out ways to make imagery available which has never been on the public Internet. What lessons should we draw from Haiti? How did it differ from earlier disasters? What can our government learn about how to change its processes, and what can the Where 2.0 community learn about interacting with government? This session will highlight the efforts of many individuals and will testify to the lessons derived from their efforts.