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VOTE
Name: Google Earth Outreach Program
Nominated Category: Organization
URL: http://www.earth.google.com/outreach/index.html
Area: Technology, Outreach
About:
Don’t be evil, as everyone knows, is Google’s unofficial company motto. The web and tech giant actively pursues the opposite of evil in a rather official, large-scale way with its philanthropic and development programs, including the very recently expanded Google Earth Outreach.
Description:
Since 2007, Google Earth Outreach has enabled non-profits and public benefit organizations to tell their stories with Google Earth & Maps. Google Earth provides a suite of tools that help organizations better illustrate their cause, such as a gadget that helps a user create layers of placemarks using Google Docs, and another that lets users embed Google Earth KML map files directly in their blogs or web sites; and, even more useful, there are video tutorials that explain how to use them.
The Outreach program site links to third-party resources as well, including free software for using geo-tagged photos in Google Earth. Google-awarded grants enable organizations to use premier version of these technologies, and the program even encourages organizations to apply for other companies’ grants for satellite imagery and other similar products. One example of an early (and ambitious) project was the United Nations refugee agency s mapping of different refugee situations.
This week Google announced that Google Earth Outreach is now available in Africa, making it possible for organizations to take advantage of the pro-version software grants and other opportunities. The launch was also a way for Google to show off what some non-profits have already been doing to visualize their work in Africa with Google Earth.
Save the Elephants uses Google Earth KML touring to show viewers a narrated tour illustrating efforts to protect Mali Desert elephants. And the United Nations Environment Programme’s recently released Uganda Atlas of Our Changing Environment traces environmental change in 11 different sites in Uganda using historical imagery. This UN effort also includes narrated tours of four of the sites featured, including the Mabira Forest Reserve and Mount Elgon.
Another of the program is a workshop/tutorial element. Coming up later this week is a free workshop Google is hosting in Kampala, Uganda for non-profits interested in using the Google Earth technology. There’ll be another such workshop in Nairobi, Kenya November 5.
The Basics:
WHO: Google Inc.
WHAT: Google Earth Outreach Program now available in Africa: a grant program that enables non-profits and other public-benefit organizations to better use Google Earth & Maps technology to tell their story.
WHERE: Recently expanded to Africa.
HOW to get involved: Visit earth.google.com/outreach for information on the program and for how your organization can better use Google tools and resources.
What other people are saying:
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Posted in: Non-profit, Organization, awards | Tagged: Africa, Environment, Free, google, non-profits, Software, uganda
