Come say hello this Friday, January 22nd at the O'Reilly Design Conference. As part of the Design for Social Impact track, I’ll be discussing the work of the Nomadic Mapping Collective, a community mapping project in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia sponsored by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and ZERO1.
Over the course of one month, project participants learned how to map environmental and ecological phenomena such as temperature, moisture and shade, along with taking aerial imagery using a small UAV. This project took place in Ulaanbaatar’s large, unplanned settlements called ger districts. Youth volunteers from Ulaanbaatar’s 4H helped initiate the project, learning valuable data literacy, mapping and community organizing skills, while getting other ger district residents involved. This project sought to increase community engagement and ground truthing to existing efforts by HOT and Asia Foundation to map Ulaanbaatar’s underserved population living in the ger districts.
I’ll be talking about teaching geographic data literacy, researching to develop a cartographic language outside Western contexts, and designing maps in contexts of limited accessibility. Tweet at me, or say hello in person!