Friends Of The Earth Open Source Mapping Tool Hack Evening

Last month's meetup was hosted at the Friends Of The Earth London HQ and was a great success with about 25 people in attendance. We got a quick intro to each other and the tool, talked about its possible uses and also worked on getting it downloaded and installed from its new home at https://bitbucket.org/foeewni/mapmaker Quite a few people didn't finish getting installed successfully and so we'll also be helping people with their installations at this next meeting.

To continue the momentum we're inviting you to come along and get installed, run through the code, help us work out how to run this new open source project and look at what new features are planned for it. It's not a problem if you missed the first meeting and you don't need any specific experience of mapping technologies or any specific programming language. Be sure to bring your laptop if you have one. Non techies from charities that may be able to use this tool are also welcome.

To remind you about the project: FotE have developed a mapping tool which they use in lots of areas within the organisation, for example to show where green businesses are located with respect to green groups at http://www.foe.co.uk/what_we_do/clean_british_energy_map_39044.html. They have now open sourced it so that the tech community can help contribute to its development and so that other enviromental groups can use the tool as well. Climate Change Coder volunteers are going to help them set up the project and then help them add additional features.

Details of the project can be found here:-

Friends Of The Earth Task Details

https://docs.google.com/a/cccoders.org/document/d/15-E4KpEbAagBWK_qHprD6AllQygHm7OwkgS1t313MF0/edit#

and if you are interested in joining the project you should also join the Google discussion group at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/cccoders-and-friends-of-the-earth-mapping-project

The meeting will start at around 18:00, but we know that quite a few people won't be able to make it for that time and so late-comers are welcome.

Pizza has also been promised and there is an attendance limit of 25, so it's important that you RSVP so there is enough to go around :-)

This is an exciting collaboration between FotE and CCCoders as there is a lot of scope for using this mapping tool in many different areas, including ones directly related to climate change such as fracking and energy use.

Looking forward to seeing you there....

Itinerary:-

18:00 - Michael Heimbinder from Habitat Map will be showing us an Air Quality Monitoring sensor / Mapping application he has built. (late arrivals not a problem)

18:30 - Refine Next Stories (User Group) and Code Walkthrough (Tech Group)

19:30 - Break for food

20:00 - Discuss how we’ll get things done: raising issues, contacting users/dev, future meetups (everyone)

20:30 - Roadmap – What’s the longer term vision for mapping tool?

21:00 - Finish and go to pub - http://cantonarms.com/