40 GIS COMMUNITY NEWS Asia Pacific User Conference— “One Community, One Map” More than 640 users from the Asia-Pacific region descended on Manila, Philippines, January 26–27 for the 2011 Esri Asia Pacific User Conference (APUC). Hosted by Geodata Systems Technologies, Inc., Esri’s international distributor for the Philippines, the conference drew users from 10 countries in the region: Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, and Singapore. Esri founder and president Jack Dangermond delivered the keynote speech, in which he called for users to collaborate. Dangermond emphasized that the vision of “One Community, One Map” is the idea that geospatial information becomes pervasive and helps everyone in society do a better job. “We were thrilled to see so many users from so many countries in the Asia-Pacific region sharing and collaborating at APUC,” says Francisca N. Dayrit, Geodata executive vice president. “Thank you to all the attendees for making this event such a success.” The Manila Water Company was the recipient of the Special Achievement Award for Excellence in Enterprise GIS Implementation after successfully driving solutions in which the Esri GIS platform is one of the major technologies for its water supply management, pressure monitoring, nonrevenue water monitoring, asset management, and investment prioritization. According to engineer Abelardo Basilio, director of East Zone Business Operations, Manila Water was able to reduce nonrevenue water from 63 percent in 1997 to 10 percent in 2010. With Esri GIS as the platform, the water utility shares information with different departments, and today, as many as 200 users have access to the system. These users perform data integration, planning, analyses, and decision making. Users throughout the region embraced the theme of “One Community, One Map,” as The Manila Water Company accepting the Special Achievement Award. From left: Rommel Gumapas; Mauricio “Mauch” Franco, Jr.; Director Abelardo Basilio; Romel Cariño; Rosie Cailao; Amy Pineda; Jack Dangermond; Joy Santiago; Susan Pablo; Edgar Santos; Dem Espiritu. more than 25 maps were showcased in the Map Gallery. Technical workshops and presentations are available online at the Geodata website (www. geodata.com.ph). Upcoming Conferences The 2011 European User Conference will be held October 26–28 at the North Convention Center, IFEMA, Feria de Madrid, in Madrid, Spain; the 2011 Middle East and Africa User Conference will be held November 1–3 at the Habtoor Grand Hotel in Beirut, Lebanon. Finally, the 2011 Latin America User Conference will be held September 28–30 at the Hotel Real Intercontinental in San Jose, Costa Rica. Visit esri.com/events for more information. Redlands GIS Week Volunteered Geographic Information Plays Critical Role in Crises As a political revolution swept Egypt, led by protesters who organized via social media, attendees at Redlands GIS Week met in a workshop to explore the future impact of social media and volunteered geographic information, especially during crises and emergencies. More than 100 academics, students, government and private-sector experts, and Esri employees attended the workshop, titled Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI): Real-Time and Emergency Applications. The event, held February 8–10, 2011, at Esri headquarters in Redlands, California, was cosponsored by the University of Redlands, University of Southern California Spatial Sciences Institute, and Esri. Volunteered geographic information, or locational crowdsourcing—where citizen volunteers contribute data that’s georeferenced then disseminated—is particularly useful in emergency applications where the data’s timeliness can make it especially valuable. For example, Esri created the online Egypt Events Map just after antigovernment rallies began in Tahrir Square on January 25, 2011. The map pulled in social media related to the protest in real time. Though only a few Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr posts appeared initially because the government shut down the Internet early on, the number expanded as restrictions eased. It’s About Time In his keynote speech, It’s About Time: The Temporal Dimension in VGI, geography professor Michael F. Goodchild from the University of California, Santa Barbara, stressed the importance of time in VGI to create an accurate picture of what’s occurring and when in a particular situation. Maps have traditionally emphasized the static aspects of geography. “You did not make maps of things that were changing,” he said. “But rivers change course, people move, events occur, and emergencies develop. Geography is dynamic.” Quality of VGI Goodchild also examined the issue of quality of VGI. VGI can readily claim to be the most current data source, as witnessed by Twitter’s ability to break news before other sources. Compared to traditional authoritative data sources, VGI has been criticized for having poorer positional accuracy and overall veracity, Goodchild explained in his talk. However, that assertion is countered by citing Linus’s law, which states that the more people involved and watching over a project, the more likely errors can be spotted and fixed quickly. The law was named after Linus Torvalds, credited with initiating development of the Linux operating system. Examples of the self-regulating effect of crowdsourcing are open source software projects, such as Linux, and wikis, such as Wikipedia. Another law at play with VGI is Tobler’s law, which states, “Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.” This means that citizen contributions will tend to be more accurate in places the contributor lives near and knows best. “The most compelling case for VGI is during emergencies,” said Goodchild, adding that with experts sometimes thin on the ground, it’s important to turn to citizens who can contribute data through social media or other means. “We have seven billion intelligent observers on the planet,” he explained. Successful VGI Projects Two rapid and successful VGI deployments helped coordinate disaster response after a devastating magnitude 7 earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010. OpenStreetMap project volunteers working outside Haiti rapidly created a digital streetmap of Port-au-Prince and other places in Haiti using fineresolution imagery to trace vector maps of streets and other features. The Ushahidi Project was able to post appeals for help, translated from Creole into English by another group of online volunteers. Together, these VGI projects were instrumental in guiding first responders to disaster victims. At the workshop, Anahi Ayala Iacucci from the International Network of Crisis Mappers (and an Ushahidi collaborator) presented Introducing the Standby Volunteer Task Force: An Online Community for Live Crisis Mapping. She explained how the digital response to the disaster in Haiti was organized. Iacucci stressed that volunteers need not wait until the next crisis happens to start creating and publishing VGI. People should work together right now to start collectively mapping poorly mapped regions at risk, she said. Iacucci acknowledged Esri’s After the protests began in Cairo, Esri created the Egypt participation in many of the vol- Events Map that utilized social media, such as videos from unteer efforts, as well as in help- YouTube and tweets from Twitter, that were related to the ing Ushahidi publish geodata. antigovernment uprising. She also called for a stronger awareness campaign about the tools Esri offers to VGI in the mix of data sources used to provide assist volunteers. common operating pictures for first responders. Kurt Daradics, cofounder of Esri Partner These capabilities are being built into the System CitySourced, spoke about his company’s experi- Assessment and Validation for Emergency ence with VGI in his presentation Using VGI to Responders system, which includes a map viewer Mobilize Civic Engagement. CitySourced develops built on ArcGIS API for Flex. and markets software for mobile devices and servers that connect citizen requests for service to Mapping Disasters public agency back-office work order systems. The Esri staff conducted several demonstrations, company used Esri’s ArcGIS API for iOS to develop including showing attendees the interactive Gulf its iPhone application, which lets citizens report of Mexico Oil Spill map. The application, created problems, such as potholes and graffiti, to their in April 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig local governments. explosion, shows VGI related to the massive oil Daradics said that having citizens directly spill posted by citizens via Twitter, YouTube, report neighborhood problems using applications Flickr, and Ushahidi. The application provides on smartphones can significantly reduce the context to the VGI data by including map data cost of 311 call center systems. By connecting to supplied by authoritative sources. The 2011 floods enterprise work order systems, an alert can be sent in Queensland, Australia, and the subsequent notifying the person who reported the problem Tropical Cyclone Yasi presented further opportunithat it had been resolved, thus increasing citizen ties for mobile GIS to prove to be the best solution trust in government. to a complex situation. Other notable speakers at Redlands GIS Week Current events have proved VGI valuable in included Lorant Czaran from the United Nations case after case. Nontechnical but involved people Office for Outer Space Affairs in Bonn, Germany; around the world know they can contribute to the Lars Bromley from the United Nations Institute public record, and the power and value of VGI they for Training and Research Operational Satellite produce will continue to influence world events. Applications Programme in Geneva, Switzerland; Sentil Prakash Chinnachamy from Spatial Edge; For more information, visit www. and Joseph Toland from the United States Federal redlandsgisweek.org. Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Toland said FEMA is committed to including