23 Things: Examples of Humanitarian Map Mashups

AlertNet Interactive Map [access]
- Mapping tool that combines Microsoft's Virtual Earth with country-specific headlines. Recognized by Windows Live for its innovative use of their services.

UNHCR and Google Earth [info]
- "... new mapping programme takes you on a virtual reality tour with the UN refugee agency of some of the world's major displacement crises and the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the victims." You need to download Google Earth to be able to view these files.

Ushaidi (original version) [access]
- A map-based tool for reporting post-election violence and displacement in Kenya. Won a TED award for

World is Witness [access]
- A U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum initiative that "together data, photographs, video, and eyewitness testimony in Google Earth to help inform citizens, governments, and institutions about current and potential genocides and related crimes against humanity, and to respond." Move around on the map for the Demo. Republic of Congo and read reports of violence.

23 Things: The Eighth Tool = Mashups

I noticed that the Free Movement blog uses Yahoo! Pipes to create news and research feeds that are displayed on the site. Since one of the 23 Things units focuses on mashups, I decided to experiment with Yahoo! Pipes as my challenge. I found a guide with (somewhat dated) step-by-step instructions. I elected to use RSS feeds from six different forced migration research institutes for the exercise. Here is the result (you can also see my avatar!). The process is pretty straightforward, although this is probably less true if you want to play around with other types of sources besides RSS feeds.