New Light Technologies (NLT) and the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), based at the University of California, Berkeley, are teaming up to harness today's open-source geospatial sea change for poverty alleviation and global development, and to further CEGA's mission to improve lives through innovative research that inspires positive social change.
Hosted by CEGA for the past two years and supported by NLT, the Geo4Dev annual conference highlights novel geospatial data and analytic techniques to address poverty, sustainable development, urbanization, climate change, and economic growth in developing countries and beyond. Geo4Dev has now become the Geospatial Analysis for Development (Geo4Dev) Initiative, a hub for rigorous academic research and training that exploits geospatial data for the targeting, design, and evaluation of social and economic development programs. The initiative will further drive the development of new analytical tools and methods for geospatial analysis across sectors related to poverty and development — including agriculture and food security, urbanization, climate change, humanitarian crisis, and disaster response — bringing together leading researchers, government ministries, NGOs, and private enterprises to inspire novel research collaborations, share knowledge, and build capacity.
Ultimately, CEGA and NLT aspire to make geospatial data and tools a standard for development research, expanding opportunities for the global community of academic institutions, corporations, and international organizations to partner in this endeavor through organizational involvement, sponsorships, and data-sharing initiatives. Together with an expanding number of partners, they seek to grow the use of open-source platforms and data for measurement in global development — with a particular focus on increasing access for underrepresented populations, especially women and scholars from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
It's no longer a matter of waiting for advances in big data and analytical tools that GIS and remote sensing promise to provide. The technology and data are already here, evolving in real time, and already capable of transforming measurement on a global scale. Still, a coordinated effort is needed to expand knowledge of GIS and remote sensing tools and to integrate geospatial curriculum and methodologies into professional development pipelines for practitioners and researchers.
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About New Light Technologies
New Light Technologies (NLT) is a Washington, DC-based firm with 25+ years of experience delivering:
- Geospatial systems and enterprise GIS
- Cloud-native data platforms
- AI/ML and advanced analytics
- DevSecOps and cybersecurity solutions
NLT supports federal, state, and international organizations in operationalizing data for mission impact.