Request for devices

[Sophia Liu]

Request for Cameraphones, Cheap GPS-devices, Smartphones, etc.

I have a contact in Pittsburgh (@favilar) and he is interested in getting involved with Crisis Camp. He has a lot of contacts in Chile that are ex classmates and ex coworkers in the public and private sector and some others.

He also has a Chilean friend at Carnegie Mellon University working on project to help Chile. They are wondering if there are companies willing to donate smartphones, cameraphones or cheap GPS devices so that they can be given to volunteers working with local NGOs and/or professional associations and others wanting to help in Chile on the ground. They are working on the details but essentially they want to allow people to take geotagged photos of damages or other relevant disaster information. Let me know if you have any contacts willing to donate such devices.

They also would be interested in working with Google in Pittsburgh but they do not have any contacts there. Do any of you have contacts at the Google Pittsburgh office?

Thanks, Sophia

===================================

Sophia B. Liu

Technology, Media and Society PhD Candidate

ConnectivIT Lab

Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society (ATLAS) Institute

University of Colorado at Boulder

Sophi...@colorado.edu

sophiabliu (skype, twitter, facebook)

http://sophiabliu.com

http://epic.cs.colorado.edu

http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~palen/connectivIT

[Christiaan Adams]

Sophia, 

Take a look at Open Data Kit (ODK), which is an open-source field data collection system built by the University of Washington, and currently implemented for Android.  It provides a way to collect data using simple forms on a smartphone (including photos and GPS coordinates)... and later sync the data to a server and visualize it.  It's still a work in progress, and requires a bit of coding to set up the data collection server (ODK Aggregate) on AppEngine, but I'd be very excited to see what folks at CMU could do with it!

I don't think our Pittsburgh office  has much in the way of mobile people who would be able to help with android phones and such.  Let me know more specifically what you're interested in contacting them about, and I'll see if there's someone to put you in touch with.  

Cheers,

-Christiaan

----------------------------------
Christiaan Adams
Google Crisis Response
Google Earth Outreach  http://earth.google.com/outreach
Google.org   http://www.google.org
----------------------------------
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[Patrick Meier (CrisisMappers)]

Hi All,

Ushahidi smart phone apps available here (includes Android):

http://download.ushahidi.com

Thanks,
Patrick

[Sophia Liu]

By the way, did Ushahidi setup two instances of Ushahidi?

http://chile.ushahidi.com/

http://www.chileayuda.com/

Also is there going to be a shortcode?

Sophia

[Oscar Salazar]

Hi Sophia,

Chile Ayuda is using ushahidi's iframe.

Yes, we are setting up a local number. it's not going to be a short code though but a long number (10 digits)

-oscar

-oscar
twitter: osalazar 
skype: osgskype

[Mikel Maron]

Hi Sophia

OpenStreetMap has some resources to purchase GPS units for use by OSM Chile and CrisisCamp Chile.

We need to coordinate with someone in the US to receive the units, and bring them with them to Chile (mail is going to be too long).
Would that be possible for your friends at CMU?

Mikel

 

== Mikel Maron ==
+254(0)724899738 @mikel s:mikelmaron
http://mapkibera.org/
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Haiti

---

From: Sophia Liu <Sophi...@Colorado.EDU>
To: crisismap...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, March 4, 2010 8:41:31 AM
Subject: Request for devices

Request for Cameraphones, Cheap GPS-devices, Smartphones, etc.

I have a contact in Pittsburgh (@favilar) and he is interested in getting involved with Crisis Camp. He has a lot of contacts in Chile that are ex classmates and ex coworkers in the public and private sector and some others.

He also has a Chilean friend at Carnegie Mellon University working on project to help Chile. They are wondering if there are companies willing to donate smartphones, cameraphones or cheap GPS devices so that they can be given to volunteers working with local NGOs and/or professional associations and others wanting to help in Chile on the ground. They are working on the details but essentially they want to allow people to take geotagged photos of damages or other relevant disaster information. Let me know if you have any contacts willing to donate such devices.

They also would be interested in working with Google in Pittsburgh but they do not have any contacts there. Do any of you have contacts at the Google Pittsburgh office?

Thanks, Sophia

===================================

Sophia B. Liu

Technology, Media and Society PhD Candidate

ConnectivIT Lab

Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society (ATLAS) Institute

University of Colorado at Boulder

Sophi...@colorado.edu

sophiabliu (skype, twitter, facebook)

http://sophiabliu.com

http://epic.cs.colorado.edu

http://www.cs.colorado.edu/%7Epalen/connectivIT

[Sophia Liu]

Hi Mikel,

Thank you for finding GPS units. I will talk to my contacts to see how we can transport these units to Chile. When you purchase these units, where will they be coming from? I will check to see if my contact in Pittsburgh has friends going to Chile.

I did receive your other email and will coordinate with Julio when I find the contacts who can bring the units to him.

Thank you for this, Sophia

[Julio Costa Zambelli]

Dear Sophia and Mikel,

A member of the local OpenStreetMap community is flying to Rochester, NY tomorrow. He is supposed to come back to Chile the next weekend. He is willing to bring the devices back with him.

The only problem that I visualize are taxes. They are not a minor thing, the VAT is 19% and the custom taxes are probably something around 5%. So I will write a letter explaining the situation so he can take it with him to the states and show it to our custom officer when he come back. Hope it works.

Best Regards,

Julio Costa
OpenStreetMap Chile
http://www.openstreetmap.cl/

[Joaquin Toro]

Hi,

We have people from the World Bank going down to Chile on Monday afternoon. As international organization I belive we don't pay taxes. We need to know number of equipment and models so we have a institutional letter saying that is "bank business". 

If you are interested contact Galen at gev...@worldbank.org

Joaquin  

Sent from my iPhone

[Mikel Maron]

Thanks Joaquin!

 

== Mikel Maron ==
+254(0)724899738 @mikel s:mikelmaron
http://mapkibera.org/
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Haiti

---

From: Joaquin Toro <joaqu...@gmail.com>
To: "crisismap...@googlegroups.com" <crisismap...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "crisismap...@googlegroups.com" <crisismap...@googlegroups.com>; Mikel Maron <mikel...@gmail.com>; gev...@worldbank.org; "oapo...@worldbank.org" <oapo...@worldbank.org>
Sent: Sat, March 6, 2010 4:47:20 AM
Subject: Re: Request for devices