CrisisCommons - its soooo HOT!!

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Awarded Micro-Grant for Strategic Planning Support

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, with the support of CrisisCommons, awarded a small grant to the  Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) to help with its strategic planning process.

HOT works both remotely and on site in countries to assist with the collection of geographic information, to train others in OpenStreetMap database and related software, and to act as a bridge between the traditional humanitarian relief community and the OpenStreetMap community.

OpenStreetMap is a Web-based project to create a free, editable map of the entire world, built mostly by volunteers using data collected from portable Global Position System (GPS) receivers, digitizing aerial photography, or acquiring and making accessible public geographic data. OpenStreetMap data can fill the gaps in existing map data to improve delivery of humanitarian relief. For example, after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, HOT rapidly created a detailed map of the earthquake affected zone where none existed, providing critical information used by CrisisCommons, MapAction, Mission 4636, the World Bank and other disaster response organizations.

This micro-grant reflects new priorities for the larger grant to the Wilson Center by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation. Under the new objectives, the grant to the Wilson Center will help establish CrisisCommons as an independent, non-profit entity and support key activities; provide seed funding to other volunteer and technical communities or high-leverage opportunities that will benefit the larger ecosystem; and continue to support the Wilson Center’s events and work on the policy and research issues underlying crowd-sourcing, social media and related technologies. The reorientation of the grant was based on more than 40 hours of interviews with CrisisCommons, several other digital volunteer groups, and traditional crisis response organizations to better understand the critical needs and activities in this space. A limited number of micro-grants will be awarded in 2012.

This micro-grant will provide HOT with professional facilitation and support through the Meridian Institute to help HOT refine its mission and develop a strategic plan.

Learn more about:

Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Wilson Center:
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/program/science-and-technology-innovation-program
Meridian Institute: www.merid.org.