Tilemapping
To inspire residents to learn about local issues, Tilemapping will help local media create hyper-local, data-filled maps for their websites and blogs. Journalists will be able to tell more textured stories, while residents will be able to draw connections to their physical communities in new ways. The tools will be tested in Washington, D.C. Ushahidi, a 2009 Knight News Challenge winner, used a prototype after the earthquake in Haiti to create maps used to crowdsource reports on places needing aid.
Eric Gundersen is the president and co-founder of Development Seed. Over the past seven years, Gundersen has developed communications strategies and tools for some of the largest international development organizations in the world, in additional to working with U.S.-based public health and education organizations. He is especially interested in improving information flows within large organizations, better integrating on the ground operations with those of their home bases and visualizing information in actionable ways. Eric, a 2009 winner of the Federal 100 award for his contributions to government technology, earned his master's in international development from American University in Washington, D.C., and has dual bachelor's degrees in economics and international relations. He co-founded Development Seed while researching technology access and microfinance in Peru. Before starting Development Seed, Eric was a journalist in Washington, D.C. writing on the environment and national security.
Ian Cairns is client relationships manager at Development Seed, where he works mostly with large international development organizations on open data, mapping and knowledge management projects, as well as on Development Seed's suite of open source products. Having worked with a variety of organizations across a range of sectors and on the client side of web project management, Ian is a translator who helps turn communications needs into practical solutions. He began his career working on public policy communications for HIV and international health organizations.
