Want a N2Y3 recap?
View attendee blogs, vlogs and comments at Be NetSquared. Watch our NetSquared channel on Fora.tv
NetSquared is an initiative of TechSoup
NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.
- Home
- Project Gallery
- My Green Map: Sharing your Sustainable Worldview
My Green Map: Sharing your Sustainable Worldview
The Idea:
What will change in the world because this Project happens?
Since 1995, Green Map System has engaged communities worldwide in charting a sustainable future. Now, we’re taking the next step by merging local knowledge and our freshly updated iconography with a Google Map mashup to create an open interactive Green Mapmaking website that will inclusively help people worldwide quickly share their own selection of sustainability sites, pathways and resources online. The resulting interactive Green Maps will be viewable from our own and many other websites, starting in mid-2008. With open commentary, green ratings, multimedia elements, 'impacts index', mobile access, on-site markers and more, everyone will be able to get involved.
My Green Map (working name) will give a powerful voice to thousands and ensure that an enormous diversity of successful sustainability activities and critical issues are shared with the broadest audience possible. It will merge the booming ‘local first’ and green development movements with social networking and interactive mapping. It will draw from a rich data source: thousands of green living, nature, social and cultural resources already charted on 335 published Green Maps, used by millions both near home and while traveling.
Our network of 450 locally-led map projects in 50 countries will be the first to add sites to My Green Map. Each of their mashups will be linked to profiles and the locally-designed Green Maps already viewable at GreenMap.org. Once technical and financial barriers to participation have been overcome, we intend to phase in public mapmaking and behavior change assessment, mobile formats, thematic worldviews, and more. Thus, the N2Y3 Mashup Challenge can play a key role in promoting inclusive participation in sustainable community development around the world.
What information will people interact with to make this change?
My Green Map will welcome people to a fresh green perspective of cities, towns and villages. In a familiar Google Map format, it will enable people of all ages to explore or share comprehensive citywide maps; theme maps, such as cycling routes & resources or social justice sites; mapmaking workshop outcomes and eco-tourism maps.
Color-coded universal Green Map Icons will connect people instantly with sustainable living, nature, culture and social sites, helping them make better choices as they shop, dine, commute, work and play. The mapmaker's site description will be openly discussed, updated and translated by the public – they can add a green rating, an image or video and a personal change testimonial that provides evidence of the site's – and the map's – real impacts on community well-being and our common future. Alongside the maps, this will inspire more personal, policy and culture change.
Because My Green Map's mashups will be linked to GreenMap.org's multilingual profiles, users will be able to delve into the motivations and methodologies behind this community-media movement, exploring how grassroots, professional and youth Green Mapmakers are empowered by our adaptable full-scale Green Mapmaking resources. These public interactions will expand local project networks, too.
From a social change perspective, My Green Map offers tremendous hope to people of all backgrounds and communities everywhere.
What else have you done in this Cause Area?
Since 1995, we have built strong relationships with hundreds of environmental and social equity advocates on 6 continents. Collaboratively, we have:
• developed our eco-cultural .ORG and adaptable youth and professional mapmaking tools
• published multilingual websites, books and DVDs
• produced mapmaker gatherings, public workshops, tours and presentations
• supported decentralized Green Map Hubs in Indonesia, Japan, Latin America and other places.
Our work has received special recognition and positive press locally, nationally and globally, as GreenMap.org's News section attests.
At the heart of it all is the set of Green Map Icons, which is thought to be the world's only universal symbol system for maps. Updated during a 5-year inclusive process, Version 3 of this living lexicon was just released. Viewable at GreenMap.org/icons, these 170 symbols will identify, promote and link My Green Map's sites.
Cause Area:
Cause Area Tags:
Project URL:
http://greenmap.org/ggm/Supporting Organization:
Green Map System and the global network of Green MapmakersSupporting Organization URL:
http://greenmap.orgFinancial support?:
NoCity:
New York and cities, towns and villages worldwideState/Region:
Hudson Valley BioregionCountry:
US and 49 others
The Assessment
What kind of help or resources do you need to turn your project idea into a completed mashup?
Our small, flexible team includes digital developers, designers, social change agents and collaborators in NYC, Bucharest, Yogyakarta, Tokyo and Victoria BC. We have seed funds and capacity to move from the alpha site at GreenMap.org/ogm to a mid-year public launch, but the fully integrated self-sustaining vision - from mapmaking tool to encyclopedic Global Green Map – needs financial, infrastructure, Drupal/PHP, Google API and mobile developers, business, marketing and legal support.
By prioritizing practical ways to democratically involve many more people – from rural elders to OLPC youth to urban digerati – we can exchange crucial information that helps whole communities take action. Get involved! This synergistic mashup makes local resources for sustainable community development accessible to all, and has potential to truly revolutionize the way people from all over the world perceive and interact with their communities.
Mashup Data Sources
The Team
| Additional Project Idea Representative: | Wendy Brawer, Founding Director | |
|---|---|---|
| Project Designer | Akiko Rukube, Graphic Designer | |
| Project Engineer | Thomas Turnbull, Chief Digital Developer |
Host
Comments
Collaboration opportunity
Great project Lee! I just gave it a star.
The broad coverage of your project is very interesting - maybe it can be integrated with some of the local orientation of small businesses in developing countries, with which I work. Look forward to telling you more about it.
Meanwhile, I have submitted a mashup project called Biz-o-mat which you can see here. It helps small businesses in developing countries.
If you like it, please give it a star before COB today.
Thanks! See you in California in May!
The one way to change the
The one way to change the world. My Green Map will make the people around the world know the local life of the community. So keep fighting to make the better world
Revolutionary Platform
I can't wait to see it working. It's a very promising tool for everyone to map and connect with others around environmental and social issues. Now the Internet will heard the voices of underrepresented populations to fight for real causes.
Carlos
Colombia - South America
see it working
WWW.ALCHEMLIST.ORG -- the basic item, zip, search feature is working for U.S. based non-profits. We still need to work out logistics of listing int'l non-profits (how to verify they are legitimate, how to map them, etc.) but I hope the project will be able to do that too so travelers can browse needs of non-profits working in communities worldwide and help bring much needed resources to the issues they are addressing.
Jen
Exciting Project
As one of the developers on this project, I'm obviously excited about it!
This has the potential to be a great resource for people all over the world to share information about all things sustainable in their community. In a time when there's so much fear about the future of our environment, and people feel so hopeless and overwhelmed by the scale of the problem, this is a simple yet powerful way to share success stories and build connections to achieve change.
From a technical perspective this should all be achievable, we just need some expert help with some of the advanced features. We're building this using Drupal (php/mysql based open source content management system) and much of the functionality we need is already available. However we plan to make a lot of improvements to the mapping capability of Drupal using more of the Google Maps API, and this will be contributed back to Drupal.
There are some really exciting challenges here - how do you work with 169 different icons on a map? How do you minimize the amount of text in a website that will be used so globally? If you have any thoughts about this, or can help out in any of the other ways mentioned in the project posting, please get in touch!
Star
Star
My Green Map
This new tool will make possible the eventual development of Global Green Map, a wonderful way to track sustainability progress, highlight new sustainability initiatives, and broaden interest in Green Mapmaking far beyond the boundaries of the extraordinary existing network of Map Teams. Through My Green Map, people of all ages and cultures will be able to communicate local assets and resources simply and effectively, thereby ensuring that the most hopeful practices from diverse communities can be shared and replicated.
My Green map project.
This project is very important and usefull in brining sustainability to the area which is involved in the project. so this project should be put in action and the world will be a good place to live in now and in the funture.
Green Mapping
Greenmap.org is an excellent resource for tourists and transplants that like to get off the beaten path to get a sense of a city's community and 'machinery'.
Very Useful Project
I'd like to see this project grow. It's really interesting that you have such a background in the environmental mapping sector. Hopefully My Green Map will become a meeting point for the socially conscious around the world.
My Green Map is now known as Open Green Map
In case anyone's confused, the project we submitted months ago is now known as the Open Green Map.
The beta is open to look at: http://www.opengreenmap.org - it's currently being tested by a few of our mapmakers in Baltimore, Rockland NY, Manhattan NY, Quincy MA and Stockholm Sweden.