UK, 30 May – The MapAction Hackathon with AGI (Association for Geographic Information) was held on Saturday 27th April at Astun Technology offices in Epsom, Surrey. 40 people attended and worked on a series of data and visualisation topics to help MapAction in the field. The winning idea for the day was the “Dirty Data Dashboard”. This is a tool to help MapAction prepare data for scenario exercises, a key component of making sure the team is prepared for a real disaster when it happens. 

The event couldn’t have gone ahead without the enthusiasm of the participants who brought their knowledge of data, programming, GIS and visualisation from their day jobs to help MapAction. Technical Project Leader Andy Smith commented “We’ve already made progress with implementing some of the ideas and we’ve passed on the ideas for the population movement arrows to our volunteers. The Dirty Data Dashboard got its first real test at our annual disaster scenario training exercise.”

MapAction would like to thank Astun Technology who supplied their offices, lots of tea coffee and refreshments and cup cakes! MapAction are hoping to hold similar events to this in the future. If you are interested in joining the AGI as a member please visit the AGI website for more information. Please keep an eye on the MapAction website for more details and register here for alerts.