Technology 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
03 May 2013
Live Chat with the Guardian
The Guardian’s Anna Scott invited me to join the April 11th session on Making ICTs work for social justice and development. It was a vibrant discussion. Here are some of the best bits. Some of my input: A tool is only as good as the wider project: Successful projects need a mandate, a plan, a
22 Apr 2013
Space Apps Snapshots
For the second year in a row, I had the pleasure of joining the International Space Apps Challenge. This year we were the largest global hackathon ever! In addition to participating in the very successful Toronto SpaceApps event, I curated the global story. Here are some of the pieces on the SpaceApps Blog: Timezone Dancing
05 Feb 2013
CBC Spark Interview: Crisismapping, Ushahidi and Canada
CBCSpark’s Nora Young interviewed me about Ushahidi, Crisismapping and citizen activism. The episode #205 also includes an interview with Rebecca Chiao of Harassmap and my colleague, Daudi Were, Project Lead of Uchaguzi. Download the CBC Spark podcast I firmly believe that the lessons learned from crisismapping can be applied to every day important things. Maps
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
15 Dec 2012
HOT membership and Board proposal
The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is in election mode. I hope to become a member pending approval and am proposing to join the board. More on that in a bit. What is HOT and Why is it so important to the Digital Humanitarian Ecosystem HOT grew with the need to recognize emergency and crisis mapping.
29 Nov 2012
What kind of Internet do you want?
The Internet is our community garden, our public space and our workshop. Every day I work with people around the world who create maps and technology for good. A free and open Internet invites this collaboration beyond borders, religion, politics and societal barriers. Crisismappers, particularly, conflict mappers do some of the bravest and scariest acts
26 Nov 2012
We’re RHoKing Toronto and Vancouver
Random Hacks of Kindness season is here again! RHOK’s mission is to make the world a better place through a global community of innovation developing practical open technology. We are a global hackathon community holding events on December 1 – 2, 2012 in over 30 cities. (Personally, I’m very excited to see Sydney, Australia join