As 2008 winds down, all of us at NiJeL have been reflecting on how great a year it has been. Sure, we’ve lived through the worst financial meltdown since, perhaps, the beginning of time, our car companies might not make it deep into 2009, and prices might just keep falling and falling and falling. But hey, we elected Barack Obama, and that’s enough for us here at NiJeL to call 2008 a great year.

NiJeL turned one year old in 2008, and we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished this year. In a nutshell, we visited India, we launched the COAR map, the Beatitudes Center DOAR map, opened an office in Baltimore, started a intern program, started working on the Afterschool Map, and made it to the top 15 of the NetSquared/USAID Development 2.0 Challenge with HarassMap and FloodSMS. Whew!! We have a lot planned for 2009, so please stay tuned to our blog to get the latest news about NiJeL.

Thanks to everyone who worked with us over the last year! We hope to continue working in 2009 and beyond to impact communities around the world through mapping. Happy Holidays!!

A gigantic THANK YOU to those of you who voted for either or both of NiJeL’s projects, HarassMap and FloodSMS, entered in the USAID/NetSquared Development 2.0 Challenge! Thanks to your support, BOTH of these projects were voted into the top 15!

In the coming weeks, NetSquared will be featuring interviews with each of the 15 featured projects on their website, and a panel of USAID judges will review each of the 15 projects to selecte the final 3. The final 3 projects will be invited to present in Washington D.C. at an awards ceremony on January 8th at the Newseum. We will keep you posted on our progress!

Thank you!!

I want to first thank NiJeL for giving me the chance to experience this internship.  It has been a pleasure working with JD, Lela, and Nancy.  You guys have been really helpful and very informative.  I have learned how to work with open source GIS tools such as the batch geocoder.  QGis gave me the chance to explore other GIS programs besides ArcGIS.  It helped me broaden my horizons in GIS.  Going into this internship I did not have any knowledge of other existing GIS programs so it definitely opened my eyes to a new perspective.  I also learned about delimiters and how to use them in converting pipe delimited text to shapefiles.  In all, my experience here at NiJeL has been great.  I wish you guys the best of luck with the organization and with future projects to come. You guys are doing a really good thing for the community and hopefully you guys will expand to a more larger scale.  It has been fun working with you guys!

-Richard

p.s. It’s kind of sad that the web cam finally came in! haha

It’s the last day to vote in the USAID – NetSquared Developement 2.0 Challenge! Please consider voting for NiJeL’s two projects, HarassMap and FloodSMS!

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The U.S. Agency for International Development and NetSquared recently announced their Development 2.0 Challenge, which solicited innovative project proposals using mobile technologies to impact people in the developing world. At NiJeL, we decided to submit not one, but TWO project proposals, and now we’re asking for your help.

The Challenge received 112 project proposals and now it’s your turn to vote on them. Voting is only open for a week beginning Monday, December 8 at 9:00am Pacific Time (U.S.) through Friday, December 12 at 5:00pm Pacific Time, and the top 15 vote-getting projects will go in front of a panel of USAID-selected judges who will determine the three winners. You must vote for at least three projects, but no more than five.

We’re asking you today to log on to the USAID Development 2.0 Challenge project gallery and vote for both of NiJeL’s projects and also a project from our friends at Ushahidi.com.

The two NiJeL projects are:

• HarassMap – Reporting and Mapping Sexual Harassment on the Streets via SMS
  This project, a joint effort with the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights, will implement a system for women in Egypt to report sexual harassment via SMS. This tool will act as an advocacy, prevention, and response tool, highlighting the severity and pervasiveness of the problem and alerting police to hotspots.
• FloodSMS – Early Detection and Warning of Catastrophic Flooding via SMS
  This project, a joint effort with ekgaon technologies, will create a flood early warning application, which will push SMS messages to people downstream of a flood event giving them up to 24 hours advanced warning. We intend to pilot this project in the Terai region of Nepal-India.

Our friends at Ushahidi also have a project worthy of your vote:

• Ushahidi V2 – Mobile.Crisis.Reporting
  The Ushahidi Engine is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Their goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response. This project seeks to expand the mobile component of Ushahidi.

There are a few simple rules to voting:

• If you don’t have a NetSquared account yet, register for one at: https://www.netsquared.org/user/register (please check your junk mail folder if you do not see a registration email confirmation)
• You can only vote for each project once
• Each registered user has one (1) ballot
• You must vote for at least three (3) projects and no more than five (5)
• All votes are weighted equally (in other words, your first choice and fifth choice have equal value)

Thank you so much for voting for our projects!

The U.S. Agency for International Development and NetSquared recently announced their Development 2.0 Challenge, which solicited innovative project proposals using mobile technologies to impact people in the developing world. At NiJeL, we decided to submit not one, but TWO project proposals, and now we’re asking for your help.

The Challenge received 112 project proposals and now it’s your turn to vote on them. Voting is only open for a week beginning Monday, December 8 at 9:00am Pacific Time (U.S.) through Friday, December 12 at 5:00pm Pacific Time, and the top 15 vote-getting projects will go in front of a panel of USAID-selected judges who will determine the three winners. You must vote for at least three projects, but no more than five.

We’re asking you today to log on to the USAID Development 2.0 Challenge project gallery and vote for both of NiJeL’s projects and also a project from our friends at Ushahidi.com.

The two NiJeL projects are:

• HarassMap – Reporting and Mapping Sexual Harassment on the Streets via SMS
  This project, a joint effort with the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights, will implement a system for women in Egypt to report sexual harassment via SMS. This tool will act as an advocacy, prevention, and response tool, highlighting the severity and pervasiveness of the problem and alerting police to hotspots.
• FloodSMS – Early Detection and Warning of Catastrophic Flooding via SMS
  This project, a joint effort with ekgaon technologies, will create a flood early warning application, which will push SMS messages to people downstream of a flood event giving them up to 24 hours advanced warning. We intend to pilot this project in the Terai region of Nepal-India.

Our friends at Ushahidi also have a project worthy of your vote:

• Ushahidi V2 – Mobile.Crisis.Reporting
  The Ushahidi Engine is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Their goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response. This project seeks to expand the mobile component of Ushahidi.

There are a few simple rules to voting:

• If you don’t have a NetSquared account yet, register for one at: https://www.netsquared.org/user/register (please check your junk mail folder if you do not see a registration email confirmation)
• You can only vote for each project once
• Each registered user has one (1) ballot
• You must vote for at least three (3) projects and no more than five (5)
• All votes are weighted equally (in other words, your first choice and fifth choice have equal value)

Thank you so much for voting for our projects!