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Incremental Intelligence
People have a great deal of information about the world around them. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and coordinated aggregation of the information could transform it into actionable knowledge. Whether it’s political upheaval or changes in the soil, the collective ground-level information can inform immediate personal action and long-term decision-making — allowing people to find rapid help and response during a crisis situation or to better prepare for climate change. However, there are currently very few ways for people to share, collect, and make sense of this information.
The Big Question
How might people better share and gain real-time value from the incremental information around them?
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Idea
Crowdsourced environment mapping
by Jerri Chou
You could allow local mobile phone users to send in data about changes in their environments. This would be processed/evaluated for long term consequences. Information regarding what changes might be occurring and coping strategies could be sent back to the user. Alternatively, some form of monetary “data collection payment” could possibly be offered as an incentive.
How it would work in practice. People could send in information that was new, unseen or maybe because they had heard about the program and wanted to make a bit of extra income. You could log/ask about changes in soil, or weather changes as a form of micro-data collection. In exchange, you could get an answer back or an alerted when a change means something for your particular area. You could also maybe opt in for other groups or services related to your situation to get information that could be relevant to your service sector (ie: farmers, new types of crops that are more weather resistant, drought insurance, overfishing warnings, etc.)
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4 Comments
Neil Redding
Great idea. The payment aspect could ride on top of FrontlineSMS:Credit (http://bit.ly/fpuQF) – I’ve been talking with its founder Ben Lyon recently, would be happy to connect interested folks with him.
Jerri Chou
Awesome! yeah, FronlineSMS:Credit is amazing! Definitely want to get them involved in a lot of this stuff!
Kirstin Butler
Adding a very superficial idea here: I like GimmeShelter as a name for this ;)
Nicole Skibola
This is something that could actually be incredibly useful in leveraging relationships between corporations in the natural resource industry and the communities in which they function. A major problems in these fields is the lack of communication and transparency with local communities, who then harbor distrust and resentment toward businesses operating locally. However, if community members were given a tool to communicate changes in the environment (i.e., a spill or an illegal dumping), they would not only be able to communicate a message to higher ups who are more likely to be responsive, but they are entrusted with a piece of the project. The ultimate goal is that more communication ensues and community members are empowered, rather than alienated over time.
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