Today, food security in many nations is threatened by climate change and long-term drought, the effects of war on supplies of staples from Ukraine, and the damage to global supply chains due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
It has therefore become apparent that mapping to benefit food and water security organisations, that support small farmers in Africa, would be a worthy strategic focus where we could place all energies since small farmers represent the major employment in developing countries and are often at the mercy of unreliable rainfall and drought.
This is so that policymakers, development donors, and aid organisations can benefit from the visual knowledge we supply and spend their time and energy resources better, upon helping small farmers boost their crop yields.
The roots of MapAid go back to mapping small business support in Kosovo in 1999 by a local team, which benefitted development agencies working on job creation, so vital to peace-building.
However, it was conceived in 2003 at the end of Rupert Douglas-Bate’s fellowship at Stanford University, sponsored by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, when his team of students & faculty won a prize at the Business Association of Stanford Engineering Students summer competition. Out of a field of some 30 contenders, the project came in the top three and won $5,000.
The fellowship team, which consisted of 23 students and some faculty, then decided to start a social enterprise not-for-profit. Everyone was asked to suggest names and a blind ranking was made. Out popped the name “Global MapAid“. While we knew we wanted to “map poverty solutions” we have been slowly evolving our ideas since that moment.
In 2011, after the Arab Spring, we decided our hot focus must be to map solutions that underpin sustainable job creation, with a youth focus, as across the world over 620 million youth are not in employment education or training – and from this problem, violence and social unrest may inevitably occur.
From January 2020 we commenced development on an exciting AI system to map shallow groundwater in Ethiopia. Our mission is to promote clean drinking water, irrigation and increased food supply.
Our AI groundwater map is one vital tool to help donors and aid agencies understand better where to put wells, and so reduce the risks and costs of shallow well programs. In terms of community benefits, irrigation will double or even triple crop yields, provide new jobs in food chains, and help families move out of poverty into the cash economy. Other community benefits include the empowerment of women and children, who no longer have to lug heavy water cans each day, while irrigation supports increased soil carbon which supports soil fertility and climate change mitigation.
During the 2020 global Covid pandemic, we also made maps to help inspire hope and support front-line workers, as this seemed the best way we could help.
Look through our history of projects and see what we’ve achieved over the years.
USA: George Mason University AI Mapping
UK: Rebrand
Ethiopia: Irrigation Mapping Research
UK: Burns Night Fundraiser
US & USA: Google
Brussels: Devex World
Egypt: Mapping Assessment Mission
USA: Bentley Donation
South Africa: Desmond Tutu, Patron
UK: Charity Registration
