JSL Organizes CrisisCamp:Haiti GIS Project

On January 16th and 17th, just days after the disaster in Haiti, a group of 200 nerds got together for CrisisCamp:Haiti. JumpstartLab was privileged to be involved along with many friends from the Sunlight Foundation, Intridea, CodeSherpas, and others in the DC area.

We hosted and helped manage the GIS project building maps for the OpenStreetMap initiative. Companies and governments donated high-resolution satellite imagery on Haiti after the disaster, then it was our job to trace the images marking roads, highways, and waterways. Some people even went through images of Port-au-Prince and marked downed buildings, blocked roads, and other notable obstacles.

Here are two images showing the BEFORE and AFTER high-level maps of Port-au-Prince:

People around the world contributed to this effort and made a difference. This from the CrisisCommons wiki days later from a member of the Fairfax County Search & Rescue team working in Haiti:

I am currently in Port Au Prince with the Fairfax County Urban Search & Rescue Team (USA-1) out of Fairfax, VA, USA. I wish there was a way that I can express to you properly how important your OSM files were to us. Most of our team members own their own Garmin Rino and 60CSx units on top of the units we already have in the cache. Having these detailed maps on our GPS units is a big deal. Shortly after discovering your work I quickly spread the word and transferred the street level maps onto as many Garmin units as we could before sending the American rescue teams on the streets.

The team members are thrilled to have this resource you have created. I wish you could see their faces ‘light up’ when I take their GPS unit and tell them that I’m going to give them street level detail maps. They have been working VERY hard and anything that can help them in every aspect of their mission here is greatly appreciated. I am spreading the word about this work to all rescue and humanitarian teams on the ground here in Haiti. Please be assured that we are using your data – I just wish we knew about this earlier. THANK YOU!

It doesn’t get any better than that!