At the Planetary Security Conference 2019 BlackShore’s Cerberus crowd augmented mapping platform will be demonstrated live showing the importance of using satellite imagery to help us to deeper understand remote areas. Cerberus involves a gamified crowdsourcing solution in which we ask the general public to help generate knowledge in the form of maps. Using actual satellite imagery the public is asked to spot elements of interest such as the declination of land- use, drought, infrastructure and any other indicators teaching us something about how populations are using their environment.
Together with The Hague Center of Strategic Studies and support from the European Space Agency and Amazon, we are investigating how satellite images can show us evidence related to ‘drivers of human conflict’ in Mali. In this area in particular we are comparing imagery captured of 2015 and 2018 to seek out if there is an increase in drought, meaning there would be a decrease in the availability of usable farmland feeding the local population for example. This all in relation to the estimated population in the region, of which satellite images could also show us estimates could help us to better understand the impact of the environment on conflict and later on migration estimates.
Figure 1 & 2: Mali, Segou region, 10000km2 as seen from space in 2015 (left) and 2018 (right) showing an average 'drying' out of the region limmiting use for agricultural lands.
In general Cerberus is a platform in which we bend ‘brain power’ and later ‘revenues’ abundantly present in the gaming industry to useful causes. Cerberus is using game elements inspired by the existing gaming industry to motivate her crowd of 1000s so they help us to convert satellite imagery into maps. The advantage of using human mappers above machine learning systems, is that they can map not only based on directly visual recognition of elements, but also based on context creating the surrounding region into account. In addition, since Cerberus connects the global public directly to world problems without asking them to leave their living room works as a vessel of communication showing that it truly matters to help out.
Other example topics that Cerberus is used for are:
-Disaster Mapping
-Discovering Refugees
-Illegal logging detection
-Supporting farmers in developing countries to become smart in using their lands.
Cerberus can be played and downloaded by visiting the facebook page.
For more information about BlackShore and her activities, please visit this site.
During the Planetary Security Conference, Cerberus will be demonstrated next to the Marriott Hotel conference in the main lobby accompanied by Hans van ‘t Woud, BlackShore’s founding director and his colleagues who are happy to share more about the capabilities of his platform.
Picture credits: BlackShore