Open Data

Greenland is increasingly framed through geopolitics, resources, and strategic interest. But it is first and foremost a place of extraordinary beauty, culture, and people. In 2014, I had the opportunity to visit Greenland during a climate-change event and document the place from the air (planes, helicopters, and drones) and the ground (including the then-fancy Google Glass). Given the growing attention on the Arctic, I’ve uploaded hundreds of my photos and videos as open data (CC-BY) to support journalists and independent media who need high-resolution, reusable visuals to tell accurate and respectful stories about Greenland. ...

I’ve joined MapBox as Chief Scientist! This is a long-coming love story, made possible thanks to my recent extraordinary visa. An amazing next stop on my journey to bridge Science and Technology with Society at large. I am very excited to join this awesome team. Think of MapBox as a mix of Wikipedia for maps (leveraging the power of open data and crowds) and Apple style to master a product that is beautiful, fast and breaks beyond convention. Faster, better, open maps for anything that has a location. ...

The Open Data Catalog at the World Bank is a fantastic resource. I’ve used it many, many times. Especially while developing the GAIN Index. I’m sure I’ve spent hours on that domain. It’s astonishing the amount of information they’ve gathered in a consistent way. Our GAIN Index indeed uses, and references, roughly 80% of its components directly back to the Catalog. Proudly, but oddly, a number of people have told me that they use our page instead of the Bank’s to get a glimpse of the data for a particular country. As humbling as that is, it’s odd that our page gets visits to see the components, not the aggregation we do for our purposes. It’s like buying a book for the Bibliography. ...