Open Source Citizen Science Apps

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

We have several spinoff citizen science platforms that extend the OpenLitterMap platform. These need to be developed to build up a community of interested users, who will be onboarded into the Littercoin protocol and into the Cardano ecosystem.

These include 

• Collaborating with Yosef on minefree.info mapping landmines and war-related debris in Ukraine. Through the cardano ecosystem we have been introduced to the Ukranian emergency state department who want to exploit our 15 years developing openlittermap to build a similar civilian-lead platform to help facilitate citizen generated data to mitigate the impacts of war. An estimated 15% of agricultural land is believed to be contaminated with land mines but there is no platform that easily allows people to share data with the authorities. The authorities will decide what data, if any, goes open. We had a chance to build this a few months ago, but were understaffed due to lack of resources.
• Druglitter.info. Like openlittermap, this is a litter mapping app, but because of the ethical implications of the data (where homeless people go to inject) this platform is intended for local government and health workers to use, to decide where to locate services, evaluate changes in policy, and more. Local authorities will be able to make a locally-informed decision about the openness of this data.
• Derelict Ireland - The people of Ireland are facing a housing crisis that is borderline a human rights emergency. Greedy landlord politicians have purposefully stopped the production of new homes which have caused real estate and rent prices to become one of the most expensive in the world. Despite this, over 100,000 homes remain empty, abandoned and are falling into disrepair. Most of these properties are not mapped and their ownership remains unclear. With another government partner, we are building a spatial engagement and mapping platform that enables people to share real, factual information about the state of buildings in their community, complemented by real historic human elements that bring historic streets and buildings to life. We will launch a new platform (engagekilkenny.com) soon as a pilot, but this also remains significantly underdeveloped due to a lack of resources.
• And more! If you like this kind of work, we have loads more projects on the way.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

 Followed by our 15+ years developing openlittermap, we are building a range of new and largely unexplored citizen science and public engagement tools that empower people to easily share and consume information about the world around them. We want to grow and develop these tools to engage more people in citizen science, bring them into OpenLitterMap & Littercoin ecosystem, and experiment with new tokenisation models.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Getting people to use the app will be the biggest challenge which we are making as fun, rewarding and easy as possible

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Q1: Developers hired, first new major releases.

Q2: Integration between OpenLitterMap & DrugLitter platforms.

Q3: EngageKilkenny app will be replicated in a few more cities around the world.

Q4: Experiment with new tokenisation models similar to Littercoin

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

x1 Senior web developer @ $50,000 ($25/hour)

x1 Senior mobile developer @ $50,000 ($25/hour)

CTO + CEO = management, code review, full stack developer, business development, outreach, sales, marketing: $25,000

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Seán Lynch - Founder, CEO, CTO, CFO

Laravel + Vue developer: required

React Native developer: required

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

OpenLitterMap got its first funding from Fund 4 which has allowed us to debug, refactor and improve the app. The work so far is intended to be a good starting point for someone looking to get started with citizen science. We are already taking advantage of this but need support to move faster and onboard more people with a variety of apps that speak to different groups in society.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

We will continue to provide an improved cost breakdown on google spreadsheet for every spend.

We will complement this with a monthly report on team, progress, updates and expenditure that will become a landmark project for transparency on Catalyst.

There will be open access to every invoice & proof of funds at all times.

Included in the monthly report will be a link to each significant github commit which you can already review on github.com/openlittermap

We already host a weekly community call, followed by a weekly blog post about our progress. We will be able to complement this with weekly edited videos showcasing our progress and community development.

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

Lots of cross-fertilisation between our apps, new people starting in 1 project and gets interested in another. This will help us build a network of communities and achieve mass adoption.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

We got our first funding in Fund 4 ($50,000) which helped debug openlittermap, add many new features, and help shape the tokenomics. We have established openlittermap as a data collection practice that has active daily users, and we have piloted many similar apps. Now we need funding to develop the ecosystem of our citizen science apps and explore new incentive and reward systems.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

Citizen science covers 16/17 SDGs

https://openlittermap.medium.com/openlittermap-and-the-sdgs-ea3567d5085e