Building capacity and access to location tools
By: Mikel Maron
Since the founding of Mapbox, we’ve been driven by the belief that data and maps can shine a bright light on the hardest of problems. The Mapbox Community Team works to build the capacity of changemakers around the world to access the best location tools to understand challenges and find solutions.
So we’re so excited to be growing the Community Team with the addition of Megan Danielson, who will focus on geospatial teaching, learning and researching with Mapbox.
During her 5 years in geospatial education at the University of San Francisco, Megan helped create and deliver a GIS certification program, and worked with the joint NASA/USAID program called SERVIR to support decision makers to access geospatial data and tools for effective planning choices. Her research and work have focused on leveraging mapping to improve the lives of under-served populations in Southeast Asia, particularly where access to data can better address the needs of women and girls.
I asked Megan about the opportunity she sees for Mapbox in learning and research environments.
Maps can transcend our own political or social ideas, bringing a much-needed perspective to really tough problems.
There’s a lot of interest in Mapbox from educators and I’m excited to begin work on co-developing curriculum with researchers and universities, to connect their classrooms, research projects, and communities. There’s an opportunity to build materials accessible to a wide audience and many kinds of learning environments. I love the inter-disciplinary nature of this field, and Mapbox can be useful to so many people from so many different backgrounds — coders, data journalists, librarians, decision makers, researchers and so many others.
Mapbox is particularly poised to drive more engagement and discussion around what can sometimes be siloed, niche academic topics. We need to illuminate opaque areas of research to where it can have impact, and elevate great work in mapping — from election mapping to visualizing malaria to analyzing access to schools — for others to learn from.
Can’t wait to see what we do with Mapbox in the classroom, in curriculum, and developing solutions for tough questions. Get in touch with your ideas and needs in education and research. Welcome to the team Megan!
If you’re at #GoodTechFest, join Megan and Marena Brinkhurst on Wednesday 5/21, for a hands-on workshop to make an interactive web map with Mapbox Studio and Mapbox GL JS. Bring your laptop! (8:30–10am Central).
Megan Danielson joins the Community Team was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.