Publication: Open Mapping Toward Sustainable Development Goals

by Celina Agaton

Thrilled to be invited by the Youthmapper family to write a chapter on my gender, jobs and climate program for Springer’s Sustainable Development Goal Series. Open Mapping towards Sustainable Development Goals

  • Offers the voices of students or recent graduates in countries where YouthMappers is active
  • Covers topics ranging from water, agriculture, food, to waste, education, gender, and disasters
  • Addresses topics at various scales of perspective, from individual/local city level to national and global scopes
  • This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access

Read my chapter Sustainable Development in Asia Pacific and the Role of Mapping for Women. and download the whole ebook.


CGIAR Indonesia-Africa SDG Workshop

In September 2022, CGIAR funded our Open Knowledge Kit accelerated humanitarian and MSME regeneration program in Bali, Indonesia. We brought together selected technical and non-technical women and Indigenous youth to learn our accelerated program of SDG data collection, mapping, analytics and monitoring, drone operations, and Tourism and Creative Industries micro, small and medium enterprise support and market access.

Our model delivers faster, more accurate verifiable representative data using free and open source tools and low-cost equipment. Training local communities means expensive consultant, equipment, software and travel costs and carbon footprints are greatly reduced, and enable continuous and consistent monitoring while increasing local daily wages by 100 to 1700 percent.

CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis. The Open Knowledge Kit program is supported under their gender and digital divide Digital Innovation Initiative.

Read CGIAR’s blog post.


Open Knowledge Kit: 2023 Launch

2022 CGIAR Indonesia-Africa Training Program

Open Knowledge Kit is a global program that addresses long-standing barriers to addressing gender, jobs and climate security gaps. Non-technical and technical cross-sector local communities led by women are rapidly trained across 15 free and open source tools to create local data employment opportunities at 2-17 times higher daily wages, while agriculture, tourism and creative industries are connected to premium and ethical clients.

We’re committed to the long-term well-being of local communities by coordinating donors across multi-year investments and enabling them to make more informed decisions with better data, prioritization and monitoring methods across the Sustainable Development Goals.

Stay tuned for our official launch soon!


Bali Fab Fest 2022

Bali Fab Fest is organized by the Fab Foundation, the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT, the Fab City Foundation, and the Meaningful Design Group. It brings together two major annual events, the 17th edition of the Fab Lab Conference and 7th Fab City Summit 2022. Bali Fab Fest is a learning experience for both international participants and local stakeholders who invest their efforts into inventing and realizing the world that is coming next, responding to global challenges such as climate change and social exclusion through small scale interventions in situated communities. The event aims to promote and enable meaningful collaborations between innovators, makers, entrepreneurs, organizations, and the public sector.

On October 20, I join the panel, Community: People’s Engagement in Shaping Their Own Future.


World Bank G20 Youth Event

On June 21, I’ll be sharing how our Open Knowledge Kit regeneration program helps non-Youthmappers and non-technical youth learn mapping skills that create local data employment to earn 2-17 times higher daily wages through mostly remote training. These skills combine with climate change modeling and early warning flood systems at 70-1000 percent lower costs to remove barriers to addressing climate change.

The World Bank Group (WBG) Youth Summit Committee (YS) and the Youth-to-Youth Community team (Y2Y) are organizing a joint event in the context of the Youth G20 (Y20) Pre-Summit event in Indonesia. The goal of this joint event is to highlight the role of the youth in addressing the impacts of climate change, foster environmental inclusion, and to discuss the importance of having a youth-led green, resilient and inclusive development approach for people and the planet.  

The World Bank Group (WBG) Youth Summit Committee (YS) and the Youth-to-Youth Community team
(Y2Y) are organizing a joint event in the context of the Youth G20 (Y20) Pre-Summit event in Indonesia.


Subak Australia Climate Impact Fellowship

In 2022 I was one of six people awarded with a fellowship at Subak Australia. Subak’s Fellowship funds innovative climate data specialists. This funding partially supported outputs for my G20 presentations, to show that my OK Kit local data economy and MSME program can provide better data, local revenues and social impacts at significantly lower costs and climate footprints, in just 3 months.


ADB Webinar: Emerging Trends in Inclusive Digital Employment

by Celina Agaton

On Friday, April 23, 3pm Manila time, I will discuss our women-led open knowledge stewardship program using free and open source data collection, mapping and analytics tools and pioneering technologies. Effective humanitarian and development action should be led by the women who are at the center of the social and economic prosperity of their communities. Mapping and data science jobs also provide meaningful and productive work with fair wages, while working safely from home.

This the first Asian Development Bank webinar in a new series that will spotlight the opportunities and challenges of ensuring the accelerated transition to the digital economy is jobs-rich and inclusive. The discussion will explore three different models that leverage technological innovation to help marginalized groups access digital work.

Objectives

The webinar will:

  • Share findings from the experience of leading innovative digital skills and employment organizations in the region
  • Highlight opportunities and challenges to scale what works to support inclusive and sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Identify how governments and the private sector can work together, including opportunities for ADB engagement

Click here to join the meeting.

View the program and learning materials here.


Mapping & Data Science Workshop

On Wednesday, October 21 at 10pm PHT | 14:00 UTC, join our free online mapping and data science workshop with the Asian Pathways Research Lab at the Asian Institute of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Policy, University of Toronto. Hear Ivan Gayton’s efforts leading Médecins Sans Frontières|Doctors Without Borders, co-founding the Missing Maps project, and his current work with Humanitarian OpenStreetMap. Celina Agaton shares her global experiences in open data, civic technology, gender, and cultural preservation to regenerate supply chains.


Resilient GIS Education

by Celina Agaton
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Join the first Asia Pacific series on resilient Geographic Information Systems education on Monday Aug 17th 2am UTC.

Asia – Pacific Panel 1: Pedagogies for Resilient GIScience Education.

Monday August 17, 2020, from 2:00 – 3:30 pm New Zealand / 12 – 1:30 pm Sydney / 10 – 11:30 am Beijing

Click here to watch a recording of this panel discussion and here to read a transcript of the chat discussion.

Panelists:

  • Yinghui (Cathy) Cao is a Lecturer in Geography at Qingdao University, China. She earned her PhD from the University of Western Australia, and M.A. from Temple University (US). With an experience of teaching and learning GIS related subjects from three countries, she is able to reflect on the distinctions in university culture and programs and their influence on GIS pedagogy. Cathy’s research focuses on the use of geographic information and geovisual techniques for improving public education and communication concerning climate change and disaster risk.
  • David Garcia (social media: @mapmakerdavid), originally from the Philippines, is a Geospatial Science PhD student at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He is a prolific mapmaker with a background as a geographer and urban planner in cities and communities hit by disaster or war. His PhD project is an ethnography of crowdsourcing and GIS by working with the OpenStreetMap community. He is a member of the Ministry of Mapping (social media: @mappingministry), a geospatial collective that cares about equity, diversity, and regeneration in Asia and the Pacific.
  • Celina Agaton (Twitter: @CelinaAgaton) helps revitalize local economies around the world through heritage preservation, food security, gender, sustainable tourism, open data and free and open source geospatial technologies. Her programs coordinate efforts across community sectors and funders. She loves creating vibrant, accessible and sustainable creative spaces that connect people to the things they care about in their communities. Her projects take her around the world, working with CEOs, farmers, government leaders, doctors, artists and students. She consulted as the community engagement director and strategist for innovation thought leader, Don Tapscott’s initiatives including Open Cities and Global Solution Networks at the Martin Prosperity Institute, and was a contributor to social innovation bestseller, Macrowikinomics: New Solutions for a Connected Planet.
  • Martin Tomko (Twitter: @dinomirMT) is a spatial information scientist specialising in computational approaches to spatial communication problems (i.e., the communication in and about our spatial environment with a primary focus on cities. Beyond that, he has a keen interest in spatial databases, and in cultural heritage documentation. He is currently Senior Lecturer at the Department of Infrastructure Engineering and part of the Geomatics Discipline team at The University of Melbourne, Australia. Martin is also a founding member and member of the board of directors of OSGeo Oceania.



Celebrating Geography Week

Para sa pagmamahal sa bayan! For the love of country! We’re celebrating Geography Week around the world with a free mapping party on Saturday, November 16 from 9am to 5pm at UP Ayala Technohub. Everyone is welcome, families with children aged 10 years old and up!

Tickets are free with registration, Grab discount coupons are available while they last at https://mapphnov16.eventbrite.com

* Learn to map

* Meet amazing mapping communities

* Hear talks on why mapping is a great career

* Win great prizes! Shop in our palengke to help local farmers and artisans

Join our mapping sessions :

  • Learn the basics of how to map using OpenStreetMap
  • Join GeoLadies PH and Mental Health aWHEREness to help map breastfeeding, LGBTQ, health and mental health services
  • Learn how to use drones
  • Map tourism sites, restaurants and learn Wikipedia
  • Validate Facebook Artificial Intelligence roads
  • Join or start a Youthmappers community


Women’s Day: Mapping the Gender Gap

For International Women’s Day and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), Missing Maps, YouthMappers, American Red Cross, U.S. Department of State‘s MapGive program, and the USAID – US Agency for International Development GeoCenter hosting a mapathon in Washington, D.C. and are helping map our Mindanao tasks for gender gap mapping in agriculture, healthcare and artisan communities. Please help us complete these tasks to reduce the security risk to our field teams during the election season: https://www.youthmappers.org/projects #WhenWomenMap #EM2030Index #GenderGap #MapPH


Celebrating National Heritage Month and 10 years of Jane’s Walks in Historic Quiapo District

MapPH hosts Jane's Walk at Historic Quiapo District

On May 7, Manila joined 200 cities in celebrating the 10th anniversary of Jane’s Walk and what would have been Jane Jacob’s 100th birthday. Jane’s Walks began in 2006 to commemorate the life of one of the most influential figures in urban planning. Jane Jacobs championed a community-based approach to designing cities, including the seminal concepts of pedestrian-friendly sidewalks, parks, and retail design in building vibrant local economies. She helped derail plans to convert core downtown neighbourhoods into highways in both Toronto and New York. May also marks National Heritage Month, providing opportunities to raise awareness of heritage buildings in need of preservation.

In partnership with Far Eastern University, Map the Philippines hosted a walking tour of historic Quiapo district attended by over a hundred participants. Labelled #mapPHquiapo, the tour included 125 year-old San Sebastian Basilica, led by Conservation Foundation Director, Tina Paterno who detailed the rich history of the country’s only all metal building and whose interior finishes are still original from 1891. The Basilica’s steel and cast iron were forged in Belgium and shipped to Manila in 9 steamships, and then curiously painted to look like stone. Its painters were the country’s leading art school which eventually evolved to become the University of the Philippines Fine Arts. Another original feature is its intricately painted German stained glass by Heinrich Oidtmann, whose work is part of major museum collections around the world.

From the church, Kapitbahayan sa Kalye Bautista’s Peter Rallos and Far Eastern University Guides Fatima Mae Luna and Francis Calderon led participants through historical Hidalgo street lined with 300 year-old homes and Bahay Nakpil-Bautista, home of composer Julio Nakpil and heroes of the 1896 revolution. The tour ended at Far Eastern University’s living art space, recognized by UNESCO for successful heritage preservation. Its five Art Deco buildings were designed by Pablo Antonio, Sr., National Artist for Architecture.

From the walking tour showcasing Quiapo’s past and present, the event transitioned to a mapping party for Quiapo’s future at the modern Far Eastern University Institute of Technology 17th floor hall overlooking the city of Manila. Participants learned the basics of neighborhood mapping on OpenStreetMap, how to report heritage protection needs, and how to share photos on free mapping app, Mapillary. Wikimedia Philippines taught participants how to create and edit Wikipedia pages. Local residents and the local fire hall inspector shared concerns regarding fire safety and the lack of adequate sprinkler and hydrants to protect heritage sites and affected communities, which initiated a separate project to map to identify fire risks in Quiapo.


Map The Philippines and Mozilla GeoWeek Mapping Party

OSM GeoWeek Mapping Party

The week of November 15-21 is Geography Awareness Week and to help celebrate, Map the Philippines and Mozilla Community Space Manila are hosting an OpenStreetMap GeoWeek mapping party on November 17 from 1-6pm.

We believe maps and community driven mapping projects can help visualize the needs and opportunities in our neighbourhoods. Maps can serve as the connecting point to coordinate and track efforts across government, business, NGOs and community groups. Which is why we support OpenStreetMap, a free and open source mapping platform supported by a community of over 2.3 million mappers that contribute data about roads, hospitals, restaurants, coffee shops and more from around the world. Learn more about becoming a mapping volunteer.

Learn about OpenStreetMap and how mapping helps visualize community needs and opportunities in disaster, livelihood, arts, heritage preservation and food security.

If you’d like to learn how to map, please bring your own laptop, tablet or GPS.
The event is free and everyone is welcome! Introductions will begin from 1:00-2:00pm.

Please register at http://geoweekmnl2015.eventbrite.com

Hashtag #mapPHL #osmgeoweek
November 17, 2015

1:00 to 6:00pm
Mozilla Community Space Manila (MozSpaceMNL)
Roof Deck, Molave Building,
2231 Chino Roces Avenue (Pasong Tamo)
Makati City, Philippines 1233

Mobile Number:
+63.905.398.4499

Map and Directions


World Food Day 2014

by Celina Agaton

World Food Day Siargao

Happy World Food Day from the Surigao State College of Technology’s agriculture and fisheries program! Spent the day with Mayor Coro touring sustainable food programs and drafting up mapping and livelihood projects. Fortuitous timing for this trip to happen on this day.


A Heart to Art Chat at the Art Gallery of Ontario

Celina Agaton with the Art Gallery of Ontario's Education Committee

Celina Agaton with the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Education Committee

A Heart to Art Chat was an unconference-style event I developed to co-create ideas for the Art Gallery of Ontario. 70 community leaders and participants from the arts, culture and events communities came together in the beautiful new 35,000 square foot Weston Family Learning Centre. Over a six month process, I led the strategic planning, digital and community strategy for the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and currently sit as an advisor to the AGO’s Education Committee.

I am currently developing a plan to create a sustainable infrastructure for youth and the arts through museum, NGO, government, and business partnerships and crowdfunding.

View the full gallery on Facebook.

Learn about the Weston Family Learning Centre at http://www.ago.net/weston-family-learning-centre.

Follow the AGO on Twitter at http://twitter.com/agotoronto

Photos courtesy Rannie Turingan Photography http://www.rannieturingan.com/

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Volunteer Toronto

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During my two years as Communications Director at Volunteer Toronto, I led and developed a training curriculum on social media, cross sector collaboration and volunteer engagement for non-profit organizations. I created an online process to enhance the matching of non-profit needs with corporate volunteer interests and established a program to provide low cost and free technology tools and discounted program resources to support Volunteer Toronto’s community of 500 non-profit organizations. I created Volunteer Toronto’s ChariTee campaign which was sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, George Brown School of Design students, and youth social enterprise, Me to We Style.

I conceptualized and launched Volunteer Toronto’s Free Movie Night, a social change film series to bring together funders, non-profits, business, government and volunteers, and to connect them to social innovation events and collaboration opportunities. These free movie nights brought together audiences of 300 people at each screening.

I collaborated with volunteers to create Volunteer Connect, a Facebook application for volunteer opportunities, which was endorsed by the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration.

I hosted Volunteer Toronto’s annual event, Toronto TimeRaiser, an event to connect people in their 20s and 30s to volunteer opportunities.

I also created and managed successful e-newsletters, social media content and campaigns. Highlights include using social media to recruit 200 volunteers in two weeks to attend an 8am volunteer program at Toronto Zoo.


Social Enterprise Me to We Style

Me to We Style

Founded in 2005 by Oliver Madison and Craig & Marc Kielburger, Me to We Style is a social enterprise that provides domestically produced clothing using eco-friendly fabrics such as certified organic cotton, viscose from bamboo and recycled polyester.

Each year, Me to We Style donates half of their annual profits to their charity partner, Free the Children, while the other half is reinvested to grow the enterprise and its social mission. Through Free the Children, they plant a tree in the Maasai region in Kenya for every piece of apparel that is sold as part of a long term sustainability initiative.

Me to We Style is part of a family of youth organizations, including Free the Children, Me to We and We Day, that has a shared goal: to empower a generation to shift the world from ‘me’ to ‘we’—through how we act, how we give, the choices we make on what to buy and what to wear, the media we consume and the experiences with which we choose to engage.

In 2009, I established Me to We Style’s social media presence on Facebook and Twitter.



Fundraising for Maker Faire Toronto

by Celina Agaton

Maker Faire Team Photo

I launched the Pay it Forward campaign to help kids and families in priority neighbourhoods attend the 2013 Toronto Mini Maker Faire. Part science fair, part festival, and part something entirely new, Toronto Mini Maker Faire is a registered non-profit, all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, engineers, tinkerers, hobbyists, science clubs, hackers, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors. All of these “makers” come to Maker Faire to show what they have made and to share what they have learned while creating it. Toronto joins over 60 cities around the world that host a Maker Faires of their own.

Over 4000 people packed Wychwood Barns Sept 21 & 22 for Maker Faire Toronto 2013.

Learn more about the campaign and Cory Doctorow’s support.


National Volunteer Week ChariTee Design Contest

by Celina Agaton

ChariTee Design Contest

I created the ChariTee T-Shirt Design Contest in partnership with George Brown’s School of Design and social enterprise, Me to We Style to commemorate National Volunteer Week in Toronto in 2009. George Brown’s art foundations class produced t-shirt designs as part of their course curriculum, and we opened up the voting to the public to select the winning design.

Voting closed on Friday, April 10th with over 10,000 votes for the winning ChariTee design by Tlell Davidson. Her winning design was printed by Me to We Style and showcased on their site.

On April 15th, the ChariTee Design Contest exhibit and winner announcement took place at George Brown’s School of Design art gallery. Volunteer Toronto, Me to We Style and the School of Design awarded certificates and prizes for the top 20 designs, finalists and contest winner.