An article by Bob Pool in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times brings one small bit of positive news about Haiti. Groups of volunteer ‘techies and geo-geeks’ from San Diego to London are building quick, simple mapping tools that can be used from cellphones, to help rescue and recovery workers make their way around Port au-Prince.
This is the flip side, so to speak, of all those news stories about 100,000 apps in the Apple App Store. Most of them are no doubt pretty frivolous, and those of us involved in the tech industry in whatever way must sometimes feel as if we are in the toy business. And not infrequently we are.
So, from more then one perspective, it is good to see how this technology and the people who create it can make a real difference in one corner of the world.
Tags: emergency response, geolocation
If they can help…then more power to them!