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Global MapAid seeks clearer disaster maps
Stanford project helps aid groups get real-time data
- David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, January 17, 2005
Picture landing in a remote stretch of Sumatra ravaged
by last month's tsunami, your ship or plane loaded
with medicine or food for survivors.
You're ready to help, but you're not sure where all
the hospitals and health clinics are. You don't know
which roads are passable and which have been washed
out. You can't find all the refugee camps scattered
along the coast. And the camps, clinics and blocked
roads don't show up on any standard map.
A project hatched at Stanford University may be able
to help.
Called Global MapAid, the effort builds maps of
disaster zones or other areas where international aid
agencies work. With a combination of handheld
computers, satellite phones and innovative software,
the organization can quickly draft and update maps
that show the washed-out roads and altered coastline,
the location of aid centers, even areas with
contaminated water.
After starting as a student project, Global MapAid has
registered as a nonprofit organization. Its founder
and chairman, who helped create a similar group in
England, just secured a $12,000 grant to visit Sumatra
next month and demonstrate the process for the aid
agencies gathered there.
To date, the mapping project has garnered critical
acclaim but has not been truly deployed in any
disaster areas.
The founder, Rupert Douglas-Bate, hit upon the idea
years ago while working on a relief mission to Bosnia.
Trained as a water engineer, he was assigned to repair
drinking water systems that he couldn't find.
"I didn't know where any of them were," he said.
"There were minefields everywhere. ... I didn't know
where the refugees were. It would have been incredibly
helpful to have a series of maps that showed, 'These
refugees are here.' "
He was neither the first nor the last relief worker to
run into the same problem.
"If you don't have current intelligence, it can get
you killed," said Randy Strash, strategic director of
emergency response operations at the World Vision aid
organization. His organization has viewed a
demonstration of the Global MapAid system, and he
thinks the maps could prove useful.
Strash had to draw his own maps when he visited
Kigali, Rwanda, during that country's 1994 civil war.
He pitched his tent on the grounds of a girls school,
not realizing that one of the warring parties had
seized the houses across the street for its top
leadership. He also didn't know the location of the
local warehouses that aid organizations would need to
use.
"I had a map of the country," Strash said. "What I
needed was a map that told me that stuff."
Global MapAid's system is designed to compile that
kind of information in simple, visual form.
To start, Global MapAid would take basic maps of a
disaster zone, showing towns, cities and roads. Then
the group or an aid organization working with it would
hire residents of the area to serve as data collection
teams.
Team members would receive a field kit of equipment
costing about $2,000 each. The kits, tucked into small
bags that look like carry-on luggage, contain a
handheld computer, a satellite phone and a battery.
Team members would be trained to enter information on
the handheld, hook the computer to the satellite phone
every few hours and send the data to a field office
where it could be compiled.
Then the teams would wander their community, recording
what they found. The kinds of data collected would
vary depending on what local aid agencies need. The
workers might locate and count schools and hospitals.
They could locate clusters of infectious disease.
Specially designed software at the field office would
take the data streaming in via satellite and quickly
incorporate it into maps.
Douglas-Bate went to Stanford two years ago on a
fellowship, hoping to design just such a system.
He had spent more than a decade working in
international relief for such organizations as World
Vision and the Red Cross. At Stanford, he gathered
together students and faculty with expertise in
cartography and computer coding to assemble the
system.
"He was very good at bringing together people from
different disciplines, " said former Stanford
Professor Gordon Bloom, who worked with Douglas-Bate,
still serves as an adviser to the group and now
directs Harvard University's Social Entrepreneurship
Collaboratory. "He created a very multidisciplinary
approach to solving social problems."
The project won a prize in 2003 in a competition
organized by the Business Association of Stanford
Engineering Students to reward innovative business
plans that address social problems. Douglas-Bate is
now making the rounds of venture capital firms and
charitable organizations, looking for funding.
Although the tsunami will be the immediate focus of
the group's efforts, Douglas-Bate wants the group to
focus long-term on anti-poverty efforts in Africa. But
the system also may have other uses. Global MapAid
board member Stephanie Race said companies with
overseas operations may find the maps useful in
studying the impact of their facilities on nearby
communities.
"It doesn't have a lot to do with disaster response,"
she said, "but it's another possibility."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MAPPING DISASTER
Global MapAid's system uses a combination of
off-the-shelf technologyand specially designed
software to create detailed maps for internationalaid
organizations. The maps can show everything from the
location ofhospitals and washed-out bridges to the
population of neighborhoodsand the prevalence of
contaminated drinking water. How it works:
1. Global MapAid, or an organization working with it,
will hire residents of a disaster area to serve as
data collection teams.
2. Team members will receive a field kit that includes
a handheld computer and a satellite phone.
3. Team members traverse their community, noting on
the handhelds the location of important facilities
such as hospitals or food warehouses. Every few hours,
they connect the handhelds to the satellite phones and
send their information to Global MapAid’s field
headquarters.
4. Using the organization’s software, Global MapAid
will take the files flowing in via satellite phone and
add the information to maps of the area.
5. The maps can then be loaded onto a Web site for use
by aid agencies.
E-mail David R. Baker at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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