"Where am I?", is a question that is easily answered in today's world. I started with a TomTom and now have navigation in two of our cars at home.
In our world of emergency management the map is king. We need it to put the spatial part of our world in order. If you can just post incidents to a map quickly and easily you can achieve some situational awareness and additional "aha" moments
The University of PennState has put together a great little video The Geospatial Revolution Project This is a 13 minute quick briefing on the origins of satellite mapping and how we have gotten to where we are today and the prognosis for the future. It can provide you with a perspective on what we could do. As I noted previously, we have all these "remote sensors" who are people with smart phones that are geolocated. The average citizen can now be part of your information network.
Earlier this week in a blog posting I had mentioned Ushahidi as something that was used in Haiti. Katelynn Levanduski picked up on the blog posting and sent me the link above. Watch the video to better understand how Ushahidi and volunteers helped with the disaster response.
