![]() ![]() The Red Cross, internationally, recently began to use open source software and data in all of its projects, he said. I spoke to Dale Kunce, senior geospatial engineer at the American Red Cross, about how volunteer mapping helps improve the situation in the Philippines. ![]() Created in 2004, it now has over a million users. OSM aims to be a complete map of the world, free to use and editable by all. The changes were made to OpenStreetMap (OSM), a sort of Wikipedia of maps. These things are easy to hyperbolize, but in the Philippines, now, it is highly likely that free mapping data and software-and the community that support them-will save lives. Those additions reflect the land before the storm, but they will help Red Cross workers and volunteers make critical decisions after it about where to send food, water, and supplies. Since Saturday, more than 400 volunteers have made nearly three quarters of a million additions to a free, online map of areas in and around the Philippines. What is it? It’s a highly detailed map of the areas affected by super typhoon Haiyan, and it mostly didn’t exist three days ago, when the storm made landfall. But they will be helped by an incredible piece of technology, a worldwide, crowd-sourced humanitarian collaboration made possible by the Internet.
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