This week I am joined by Nathaniel 'Natty' Raymond - Executive Director of Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University. Co-founder of Sentinel Satelites (with one George Clooney, yes that George Clooney), Nathaniel has worked a huge variety of roles including war crimes investigator and media consultant, but now refers to himself as an accidental geographer.

He takes us through his idea of 'The BLIMP'. The BLIMP is a standardised method of gathering, storing, and sharing data between organisations into one common operational picture (COP). He takes us through the current pitfalls of such a plan and why it has been so difficult to achieve, from working in silos, data ownership, and sensitivity of data.

Links:

Humanitarian Research Lab

Today I am joined by Olivier Cottray, Director of Humanitarian Solutions at ESRI, and with nearly 5000 followers on LinkedIn, he is the closest the humanitarian Geospatial community has to a celebrity. Starting his career working for the Antarctic survey, Ollivier has had a storied carreer in multiple NGOs.

Olivier tells us about his dream GIS, a system that allows users to define their needs and prorities. Drawing from his experience with GICHD, he bases his idea on the PRISMA project that used sliding scales to help reach a consensus of de-mining prioritisation. By allowing local voices to decide where should be de-mined first, practical decisions could be made to prioritise action. Olivier wants to expand this needs driven map to the globality of humanitarian response and integrate it directly in the rebuild after, what he so eloquently calls, the humanitarian reset.

Join me next Monday where I will be speaking to Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, where he takes us on a tour of the BLIMP.

Links:

Esri Humanitarian Solutions

IMSMA

PRISMA

For the first ever episode of 15 Minute Maps I am Joined by Jessie Pechmann, storied humanitarian and Geospatial expert. She is currently the Humanitarian GIS and Data protection lead with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOTOSM), and has previously worked at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), IMPACT initiatives, and for the state of Utah. But many of you may know her as the convener of the Information Management Working Group (IMWG) focussing on GIS.

We discuss how humanitarian response can be restricted due to physical and human boundaries that superimpose traditional political boundaries. Jessie suggests a different kind of world map, one that takes spheres of influence, culture, linguistic differences, and physical obstacles into account when drawing up lines on a map.

Links:

https://www.hotosm.org