Events Archive
05 Jun 2013
Personal Democracy Forum is 10!
Personal Democracy Forum is one of my favourite events of the year. Geeks and political savvy convene in NYC for this 2-day brain feast. Last year, I had the honour of being a Google PDF Fellow. Why PDF? PDF sessions, keynotes and, most importantly, the chance ‘lobby conference’ include a high caliber of local, national
11 May 2013
Go Open Data
Data, So what from Heather Leson Futures Panel @ Go Open Data Notes Slide 1: What is our Open Data Vision for Ontario? Canada? the World?
How will we get there?
Last year at OSCON – Tim O’Reilly told the participants that “we won”. After 14 years, open source is often a default. Last year
24 Feb 2013
OSM needs you: join the OSM Hack Weekend
At Toronto’s International Open Data Hackathon event this past weekend, it struck me how many folks would love to know how to use and how to build tools to support the OpenStreetMap community. Conversation after conversation folks mentioned that they wanted to learn more, do more. Well, this is your chance Toronto. The Toronto OSM
04 Feb 2013
Harassmap in Canada
How often can you say that you are proud and excited that your government funds something? The International Development Research Corporation (IDRC) funds many important technical, research and social entrepreneur groups that I respect and admire. This includes Citizen Lab based at University of Toronto and Harassmap, a social entrepreneur and civil society group based
24 Jan 2013
Planning for the Kenyan Elections
Nairobi, Kenya Since I arrived in Kenya at the beginning of January, I’ve been deep in Uchaguzi (Kenya Elections 2013) Planning. There has been deep dives in crisismapping strategy, local political ecosystem and, of course, many community events. It is a pleasure to host events bringing like minds together for a common purpose. I’m blogging
04 Jan 2013
Coining Global and Hurricane Sandy
In December, I had the honour to present at the United Nations Spider meetings in Vienna. Here are those presentations with details notes: Coining Global is a state of community for where Crisismapping and Digital Humanitarianism should grow: Coining global from Heather Leson Hurricane Sandy saw the rise of many Crisismapping projects, including the great
14 Nov 2012
Anti-Corruption Fighting -15IACC
Anti-Corruption and Transparency activism is merging with hacks and maps. In the past year at Ushahidi, I’ve met a number of mappers who are using the open source tools to activate and organize around these topics. As part of the 15th Annual International Anti-Corruption Conference in Brasilia, Brazil, I met these mappers and held an
11 Jun 2012
This means it’s Personal: PDF
What if? This is a question that drives me daily. What if people are connected to affect change with technology? I am very honoured to be selected as a Personal Democracy Forum Google Fellow 2012 among a distinguished list of accomplished fellows. Learning about the struggles to give voice and have free elections around the
04 May 2012
Map it, Change it! [video]
As much as I love talking about deployers, digital volunteers and mapping, I still get a bit nervous seeing videos of my talks. I was honoured to speak at TedxSilkRoad on April 11, 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey. You can tell I was talking fast when “Non-government Organizations” suddenly got renamed “Non-Government Associations.” The presentation has
03 May 2012
Canada Rhoks!
This June four Canadian cities are hosting Random Hacks of Kindness (RHOK) this year: Vancouver (new), Toronto, Hamilton and Montreal. Random Hacks of Kindness is a global hackathon that occurs in over 30 cities with over 2000 participants. What if your knowledge could change the world. This event is open to everyone. You do not