What is digital humanitarianism? Random Hacks of Kindness changing the world #STEM #techgirls

To map the world is to change the world

To map the world live is to change it before it is too late

In December, I had the absolute pleasure of being one of the community causes for the Brisbane Random Hack of Kindness or RHOK (pronounced rock) hack event.

This is such an awesome event where those with an interest and some skills in technology development come together at a host organisation to build some technology solutions – Net Engine was our generous host.

The team developed a real-time interactive map which shows where the Tech Girls Are Superheroes books have been distributed. This is so cool – check out the bigsky map here.

One of the other community causes on the day was the crisis crowd mapping of disaster zones around the world. Working with global organisations like the United Nations and the Red Cross, the team were mapping parts of West Africa to help battle ebola, and during the hack they changed course to map parts of the Philippines due to the imminent typhoons. The team may have saved many lives that weekend.

I’m now fascinated with this new breed of digital exploration. I’m convinced that digital humanitarianism is a way for us to engage young people with technology. Mapping big data is an important topic – find out more here.

Watch this video to see the original digital humanitarian Patrick Meier tell us why its so important for us all to get involved in this. This guy is inspiring!

Bruce Strong, Co-Founder of NetEngine and the Brisbane RHOK host wrote a great blog post about the day and the impact we had here. He and his team are helping us out for our first ever group crowd mapping event with high school girls for International Womens Day to be hosted at QUT on the 11.3.15 – details and registration is here.

Here is the video (also on Bruce’s blog post) which summarises the Brisbane RHOK event and the small contribution we made to changing the world. We are also building this activity as a resource for teachers to use in the classroom. Stay tuned!

Did you see our inspiring 2015 Ambassadors Lili Scout & Brynlea Gibson? Read more about them here