Kathmandu Living Labs

Last updated
Kathmandu Living Labs
Established2012 (2012)
Research typeApplied
Field of research
Technology, Data, Open Mapping, Civic engagement
Director Nama Raj Budhathoki, PhD
Staff 20-25
Location Kathmandu, Nepal
27°44′03″N85°20′13″E / 27.7340281°N 85.3368273°E / 27.7340281; 85.3368273
Website www.kathmandulivinglabs.org

Kathmandu Living Labs (KLL) is a living lab and nonprofit civic technology company [1] [2] based in Kathmandu, Nepal that primarily works on mobile technology and mapping. [3] KLL focuses on using GPS/GIS technology for humanitarian aims, sometimes referred to as "humanitarian mapping". [4]

Contents

History

Open Cities Kathmandu project members, led by Dr. Nama Raj Budhathoki, launched Kathmandu Living Labs in 2013 after the completion of their first project. The initiative started by mapping Kathmandu's road networks, schools and health facilities to prepare for potential future disasters, [5] as Kathmandu is one of the most seismically at-risk cities in the world. [6] Kathmandu Living Labs developed a web portal named WebDRI to upload collected field data regarding schools/colleges and health facilities into OpenStreetMap. [7]

Work during Nepal Earthquake 2015

KLL came to international attention in the aftermath of the April 2015 Nepal earthquake, during which the group collaborated with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team to rapidly produce free and open maps of the road network and damaged areas surrounding Kathmandu. [8] These map products were then used by humanitarian aid teams on the ground, a process greatly aided by the fact that KLL already had a working relationship with the Red Cross as well as other key aid organizations and government agencies in the region. [9] [10] The Nepal Army used crowd-sourced data of relief needed, which was collected and verified by Kathmandu Living Labs. [11] KLL was also involved in reconstruction efforts where they were responsible for development and played a part in deployment of mobile data collection system for the Nepal Rural Housing Reconstruction Program. [12]

Mapping for Social Change

KLL uses online mapping to address a wide variety of social challenges. Through KLL, a farmer in a remote Nepalese village can integrate his local knowledge of a field or stream with that of an engineer at MIT. Detailed information about a school can be used to influence government policies and actions. This work integrates local knowledge into large-scale civil society efforts. [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foreign relations of Nepal</span> Overview of relations

Though the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is the government agency responsible for the conduct of foreign relations of Nepal, historically, it is the Office of Prime Minister (PMO) that has exercised the authority to formulate and conduct policies related to Nepal's foreign affairs. As a landlocked country wedged between two larger and far stronger powers, Nepal has tried to maintain good relations with both of its neighbors, People's Republic of China and Republic of India. Nepal's relationship with China, India, and the United States has remained utmost priority for successive Nepali governments. The relationship between Nepal and India however was significantly hampered during the 2015 Nepal blockade by pro-Indian anti-Nepal protestors, where the Government of Nepal accused India of using "Russia-Ukraine" tactics to cause unrest along Nepal's southern border using ethnically Indian residents of Nepal. India strictly denied the allegation and said the unrest were solely due to Madheshi protesters. For the most part though, Nepal has traditionally maintained a non-aligned policy and enjoys friendly relations with its neighboring countries and almost all the major countries of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humanitarianism</span> Relief activities to aid and assist humanity; philanthropic philosophy of active humanism

Humanitarianism is an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotional reasons. One aspect involves voluntary emergency aid overlapping with human rights advocacy, actions taken by governments, development assistance, and domestic philanthropy. Other critical issues include correlation with religious beliefs, motivation of aid between altruism and social control, market affinity, imperialism and neo-colonialism, gender and class relations, and humanitarian agencies. A practitioner is known as a humanitarian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenStreetMap</span> Collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed geodata sources. OpenStreetMap is freely licensed under the Open Database License and as a result commonly used to make electronic maps, inform turn-by-turn navigation, assist in humanitarian aid and data visualisation. OpenStreetMap uses its own topology to store geographical features which can then be exported into other GIS file formats. The OpenStreetMap website itself is an online map, geodata search engine and editor.

Collaborative mapping, also known as citizen mapping, is the aggregation of Web mapping and user-generated content, from a group of individuals or entities, and can take several distinct forms. With the growth of technology for storing and sharing maps, collaborative maps have become competitors to commercial services, in the case of OpenStreetMap, or components of them, as in Google Map Maker Waze and Yandex Map Editor.

Distributed GIS refers to GI Systems that do not have all of the system components in the same physical location. This could be the processing, the database, the rendering or the user interface. It represents a special case of distributed computing, with examples of distributed systems including Internet GIS, Web GIS, and Mobile GIS. Distribution of resources provides corporate and enterprise-based models for GIS. Distributed GIS permits a shared services model, including data fusion based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services. Distributed GIS technology enables modern online mapping systems, Location-based services (LBS), web-based GIS and numerous map-enabled applications. Other applications include transportation, logistics, utilities, farm / agricultural information systems, real-time environmental information systems and the analysis of the movement of people. In terms of data, the concept has been extended to include volunteered geographical information. Distributed processing allows improvements to the performance of spatial analysis through the use of techniques such as parallel processing.

Translators without Borders (TWB) is a non-profit organization set up to provide translation services for humanitarian non-profits. It was established in 2010 as a sister organization of Traducteurs Sans Frontières, founded in 1993 by Lori Thicke and Ros Smith-Thomas of Lexcelera. As of 2012, it had about 1600 vetted volunteer translators. TWB aims to close the language gaps that hinder critical humanitarian efforts by connecting non-profit humanitarian organizations with a volunteer community of professional translators, building language translation capacity at the local level and raising awareness globally about language barriers.

Ushahidi is an open source software application which utilises user-generated reports to collate and map data. It uses the concept of crowdsourcing serving as an initial model for what has been coined as "activist mapping" – the combination of social activism, citizen journalism and geographic information. Ushahidi allows local observers to submit reports using their mobile phones or the Internet, creating an archive of events with geographic and time-date information. The Ushahidi platform is often used for crisis response, human rights reporting, and election monitoring. Ushahidi was created in the aftermath of Kenya's disputed 2007 presidential election that collected eyewitness reports of violence reported by email and text message and placed them on a Google Maps map.

The 1934 Nepal–India earthquake or 1934 Bihar–Nepal earthquake was one of the worst earthquakes in India's history. The towns of Munger and Muzaffarpur were completely destroyed. This 8.0 magnitude earthquake occurred on 15 January 1934 at around 2:13 pm IST and caused widespread damage in northern Bihar and in Nepal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humanitarian response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake</span>

The response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake included national governments, charitable and for-profit organizations from around the world which began coordinating humanitarian aid designed to help the Haitian people. Some countries arranged to send relief and rescue workers and humanitarian supplies directly to the earthquake damage zones, while others sought to organize national fund raising to provide monetary support for the nonprofit groups working directly in Haiti. OCHA coordinates and tracks this on a daily basis. The information is disseminated through the UN news and information portal, ReliefWeb. As of September 5, 2013, ReliefWeb have reported a total relief funding of $3.5 billion given.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barry N. Haack</span> American geographer

Barry N. Haack is an American geographer and Emeritus Professor in the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He is an international authority on remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and technology transfer from developed to developing nations. Haack is a visiting physical scientist at the United States Geological Survey and an elected Fellow in the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). Through education and collaboration, Haack has influenced the careers of scientists and decision makers from many United States federal agencies and in universities and agencies in nearly thirty countries. He has held formal arrangements with the United Nations, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, NASA, the European Space Agency, the National Geographic Society, and many other international organizations and country governmental agencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Humanitarian Network</span>

The Digital Humanitarian Network is a consortium allowing Volunteer and Technical Communities (V&TCs) to interface with humanitarian organizations that seek their services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">April 2015 Nepal earthquake</span> Magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Nepal

The April 2015 Nepal earthquake killed 8,964 people and injured 21,952 more. It occurred at on Saturday, 25 April 2015, with a magnitude of 7.8Mw or 8.1Ms and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of X (Extreme). Its epicenter was east of Gorkha District at Barpak, Gorkha, roughly 85 km (53 mi) northwest of central Kathmandu, and its hypocenter was at a depth of approximately 8.2 km (5.1 mi). It was the worst natural disaster to strike Nepal since the 1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake. The ground motion recorded in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, was of low frequency, which, along with its occurrence at an hour where many people in rural areas were working outdoors, decreased the loss of property and human lives.

An earthquake struck Nepal at 11:56:54 NST on 25 April 2015 with a moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). It was the most powerful earthquake to strike Nepal since the 1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake. Many thousands of people died, with most casualties reported in Nepal, and adjoining areas of India, China, and Bangladesh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Sahayogi Haat</span>

Operation Sahayogi Haat was a US military relief operation delivering humanitarian assistance to victims of the April and May 2015 Nepal earthquakes. About 900 US military and civilian personnel were involved, with about 300 deployed in Nepal. 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade was tasked to form Joint Task Force 505, which was responsible for managing the relief operation from May 6 to 26, 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Missing Maps</span>

Missing Maps is a humanitarian project that preemptively maps parts of the world that are vulnerable to natural disasters, conflicts, and disease epidemics. It was founded in November 2014 by the American Red Cross, British Red Cross, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, and Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders and has so far mapped large towns and cities in countries such as South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic.

All Partners Access Network (APAN), formerly called Asia-Pacific Area Network, is a United States Department of Defense (USDOD) social networking website used for information sharing and collaboration. APAN is the premier collaboration enterprise for the USDOD. The APAN network of communities fosters multinational interaction and multilateral cooperation by allowing users to post multimedia and other content in blogs, wikis, forums, document libraries and media galleries. APAN is used for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, exercise planning, conferences and work groups. APAN provides non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and U.S. partner nations who do not have access to traditional, closed USDOD networks with an unclassified tool to communicate.

Ramani Huria is community-based mapping project in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, training university students and local community members to create highly accurate maps of the most flood-prone areas of the city using OpenStreetMap.

The Nepal humanitarian crisis (2015-2017) developed owing to a lack of action following the April 2015 Nepal earthquake and its aftershocks. It was compounded by political factors as a result of the 2015 Nepal blockade. Victims of the earthquakes were still living in flimsy, temporary shelters more than a year after the initial devastation. The governmental National Reconstruction Authority had not devised relocation plans for these people as recently as July 2016. In Sindhupalchok District, the region that had suffered the worst devastation, the humanitarian situation was a little better towards the end of 2016 than it had been in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Field Ready</span>

Field Ready is a non-profit, global humanitarian aid and development, non governmental organization that helps provide critical items and training to people when they are in need of them. 

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Meier (humanitarian)</span> Digital inventor, humanitarian

Patrick Meier invented the concept of using crisis mapping in humanitarian emergencies, and is a co-founder and the Executive Director of WeRobotics.

References

  1. Sinha, Shreeya (2015-05-01). "3 Ways Nepalis Are Using Crowdsourcing to Aid in Quake Relief". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  2. "Kathmandu Living Labs is working to respond in Nepal: help them out! | Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team". www.hotosm.org. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  3. "OpenStreetMap responds in Nepal". Opensource.com. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  4. Bloch, Naomi (2015-11-18). "GIS & the Global Community: Humanitarian Mapping". Geothink: Canadian Geospatial and Open Data Research Partnership. Retrieved 2017-04-27.
  5. "Harnessing the Power of the Crowd: Reflections Six Months after the Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal | GFDRR". www.gfdrr.org. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  6. Politi, Daniel (2015-04-25). "Nepal Earthquake Was 'Nightmare Waiting to Happen'" . Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  7. Mooney, Mordechai Haklay; Vyron Antoniou; Sofia Basiouka; Robert Soden; Peter. Crowdsourced Geographic Information Use in Government. World Bank Publications.
  8. "Nepal 2015 Earthquake Response". 2015-05-06.
  9. Asher, Saira (2015-05-06). "How 'crisis mapping' is helping relief efforts in Nepal" . Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  10. "Kathmandu Living Labs: Six-Months of Earthquake Response".
  11. Nepal Army http://www.nepalarmy.mil.np/opssankatmochan/english_part3.pdf
  12. "National Housing Reconstruction Programme". Kathmandu Living Labs. Retrieved 2020-01-03.[ permanent dead link ]
  13. Bruce, Bertram C. (2015-12-14). "Can anything be done?" . Retrieved 17 May 2017.