Sam Wambugu
6 November 2009
opinion
Nairobi — Internet firm Google has launched a free service in East Africa that allows non-profit organisations and charities to utilise its earth mapping and satellite-imagery software to raise awareness about their work.
And if the non-profit cause is particularly interesting to a wide audience, Google sometimes takes a hand in helping introduce these non-profits through their outreach programme. This means the mapping content gets promoted through Google blog posts, and included in Google Earth layers which can give a non-profit group and its agenda incredible exposure to over 500 million users world over.
This new project is dubbed Google Earth Outreach. First was the Google Earth http://earth.google.com/, a software programme launched in 2005 that allows computer users a virtual exploration of the world using satellite images and aerial photography.
Users can click on or type in a point of interest and virtually fly through the air - past topographical features such as buildings, bridges, bodies of water and mountains - to their desired location. The beauty of the software lies in the way it provides three-dimensional context and clues. Since its inception, this resource has fulfilled a variety of recreational purposes.
For instance, newcomers use it to zoom in on their home and work addresses. Athletes use it to map their training routes. Travellers seek out a bird's eye view of their next destination before they even set foot in an airplane and much more. But when Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast, a philanthropic purpose of Google was born. It published real-time flooding imagery that the coast guard used to locate and rescue victims.
This software provided emergency workers with a situational awareness by showing collapsed bridges, road conditions and nearby landmarks. Many volunteers used the resource to familiarise themselves with the area as they sought out stranded people or submerged homes.
Stories about Katrina victims rescued by using Google abounded and non-profit organisations took notice of the software's philanthropic potential as did several people on the Google Earth team. And thus was born Google Earth Outreach http://earth.google.com/outreach/, the do-good non-profit outreach programme.
The new programme has set foot in Africa starting with East Africa. A series of trainings on how to leverage its mapping technology were conducted last week in Kampala, Uganda. While launching the programme, Ms Rebecca Moore, Google Earth Outreach manager was quoted by the local media saying the interactive tools will be used by communities to market their culture to the world. She said some of them enable people share pictures, routes, videos and stories about places.
The outreach team has also just concluded three similar training events in Nairobi which included a two-day train-the-trainer with 30 candidates set to become trainers of Google Earth Outreach materials. With the launch, East Africa has joined charitable organisations in US, UK, Brazil, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain where similar trainings have already been done and are eligible for the Google Outreach associated software for free.
Some of the examples of non-profit organisations' efforts to visualise their work in Africa and tell their stories to the world include Save the Elephants project of Mali. It shows the country's effort to protect the last of the endangered desert elephants. In addition, as part of the effort to conserve environment, Google Earth has mapped Africa's parks and reserves in Southern and East Africa providing valuable data on land and wildlife in protected areas.
This powerful tool can also be used to drum up support for the Mau particularly showing how the forest was 20 years ago and what destructive activities have taken place leading to massive deforestation. By improving the visibility of charity work in the region, this technology has also the capacity to promote tourism.
At Google Earth Outreach's website, users can get free tutorials on how to use the software, examples of it in action, case studies of how effective the application can be and tips for plugging in other multimedia into presentations. The internet giant has gained a reputation for innovation, but its new philanthropic initiative may prove to be its real hallmark of success.
Sam Wambugu is a monitoring and evaluation specialist.
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