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Global Earthquake Model (GEM)

globalquakemodel.org

GEM is a global collaborative effort with the aim to provide organisations and people with tools and resources for transparent assessment of earthquake risk anywhere in the world. By pooling data, knowledge and people, GEM acts as an international forum for collaboration and exchange, and leverages the knowledge of leading experts for the benefit of society.

http://www.globalquakemodel.org/

GEM Newsletter - June 2013

GEM Newsletter - July 2013

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Google Launches Internet-Beaming Balloons

      

washingtonpost.com - by Cecilia Kang - June 14, 2013

Google has a truly sky-high idea for connecting billions of people to the Internet — 12 miles in the air to be exact — through giant helium balloons circling the globe that are equipped to beam WiFi signals below.

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Open Data by Default – The New Mantra of G8 Leaders

G8 David Cameron thanked NGOs and other organisations for their lobbying on transparency

submitted by Albert Gomez

ecodesk.com - June 20, 2013

G8 leaders have committed to implementing transparent strategies to report pollution levels and energy consumption through the Open Data Charter, signed by all G8 countries this week.

Environmental protection is one of the key targets cited in the charter that can be achieved through the use of open data. This is arguably the most important climate change-related commitment, as under the environmental umbrella comes natural resource use, extractive industries and conflict minerals, positive governance and budget allocation.

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Why Social Media Is the Front Line of Disaster Response

mashable.com - May 21st, 2013 - Zoe Fox

Nearly one million people are affected by natural disasters each year. In the U.S. alone, some 400 people die from disasters that cost the economy $17.6 billion. Helping respond to these cataclysmic events, social media is now a go-to tool for those effected by disasters.

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Open Data to Fight Poverty

openaid.de - by Claudia Schwegmann - May 7, 2013

Germany has just published its first batch of open data according to the standard of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). The term open data refers to quantitative and qualitative data that is machine readible and openly licenced, so that third parties are able and allowed to reuse the data. . . The following guest post by Tom Berry from aidinfo explains how open data can make a difference in fighting poverty.

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London Evacuation

This report, produced for policy makers and practitioners, gives the results of a two-year project funded by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) entitled ‘Game Theory and Adaptive Networks for Smart Evacuations’. The project brought together expertise from both the physical and social sciences to bring interdisciplinary work to bear on the issue of city evacuations in the 21st Century. In particular, issues of social media and mobile communications have revolutionised emergency management and evacuation policy and this was foremost in our minds when conducting the project.

City evacuations: preparedness, warning, action and recovery

Final report of the DFUSE project (41 page .PDF file)
(Game theory and adaptive networks for smart evacuations: EP/I005765/1)

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How Social Media Is Changing Disaster Response

 

 

Image: Flickr/John

submitted by Robyn Wyrick

Congress is grappling with the benefits and risks of using Facebook, Twitter and other social media during emergencies

scientificamerican.com - by Dina Fine Maron - June 7, 2013

When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, Facebook was the new kid on the block. There was no Twitter for news updates, and the iPhone was not yet on the scene. By the time Hurricane Sandy slammed the eastern seaboard last year, social media had become an integral part of disaster response, filling the void in areas where cell phone service was lost while millions of Americans looked to resources including Twitter and Facebook to keep informed, locate loved ones, notify authorities and express support.

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Meet BRCK, a Backup Generator for the Internet

                   

ushahidi.com - by Rob Baker - May 7, 2013

Ushahidi is a team of programmers and mappers who are constantly on the move.

Being constantly handicapped with spotty internet access has led us to realize that the way the entire world is connecting to the web is changing.

So Ushahidi set out to redesign the modem for the changing way we all connect to the web.

Enter BRCK: The easiest, most reliable way to connect to the Internet, anywhere in the world.

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BRCK
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1776324009/brck-your-backup-generator-for-the-internet

 

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Solving Global Warming: A Silent Revolution

csi.gsb.stanford.edu - April 5th, 2013 - Bernadette

It’s a fact: global temperatures are warmer than at any time in the past 4,000 years –– the result of human activities releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Given existing technology to reduce our carbon footprint, why aren’t we seeing bolder action to remedy the issue at home and abroad?

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Can You Have Too Much Solar Energy?

A worker mounts solar panels on the roof of a  barn in Binsham, Germany, in March 2012. (photo: Michaela Rehle/Reuters)

Image: A worker mounts solar panels on the roof of a  barn in Binsham, Germany, in March 2012. (photo: Michaela Rehle/Reuters)

slate.com - March 29th, 2013 - Andrew Curry

It’s been a long, dark winter in Germany. In fact, there hasn’t been this little sun since people started tracking such things back in the early 1950s. Easter is around the corner, and the streets of Berlin are still covered in ice and snow. But spring will come, and when the snow finally melts, it will reveal the glossy black sheen of photovoltaic solar panels glinting from the North Sea to the Bavarian Alps.

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