It's a Web app that has three main parts
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Problem : An organised data helps people understand things better and in a more accurate way. Whether it is some medical research or climate change, if we have a good amount of data in hand, we can answer many questions like where is the crisis worsening, why is it worsening, the amount of improvements/declination over the years etc. That's why this section is important. It's where people can know the current situation by analyzing available data to understand the problems better. It has a dashboard that runs on IBM Cloud, built with node-red and uses the IBM Cloud Foundry. The dashboard shows a map where user can select any point to get some water related data (like water basin, water flowlines near that location), also people can enter their zip codes to see the water quality in that area. Unfortunately, these data are available only for the USA, but in future, we will add more datasets, more filters and hopefully it will cover the whole world rather than a single country.
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Solution : Suppose, someone has found a trick, or invented some process to clean water, save water resources or even if he/she has a success story telling how they solved certain challenges, they can share with others through articles. This is not limited to water crisis though, user can share their work on any topic related to climate change.
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Discussion : It is not always possible for all to help people physically e.g. if someone is far away from the affected place, they can not directly help them. Also it is not possible for many to provide money support to the affected or the NGOs working their. But with a dedicated forum they can atleast share their ideas which might lead to a great and affordable solution. In this section people can post their problems along with the location of the affected place, they can upload images, share details and add labels. Each problem/topic will have their own dedicated thread. Each thread will have three important sections -
- Issues : If the problem is a big problem or people working on it face some challenges, they can create issues to break the main problem into smaller problems. Each Issue will have their own discussion thread.
- Progress Report : This is to track all improvements, add tasks to do and set goals. If a task is completed, they can mark it as "completed". Only who created the topic, can create a Progress Report.
- Discussion : This thread is to discuss the main problem. The difference between the issue-discussion thread and this thread is that this section is to discuss in the context of the main problem, not its sub-problems.
Another feature of this forum is that it supports NGOs/Groups. User can register a NGO and add/remove members. If a member choose to post a problem as a NGO member, all the other members will automatically have the permission to close the topic, close an issue and create and manage the Progress Report.
This forum is designed to let people post and solve local or global climate related problems.
If you are an activist and currently working in a crisis-affected place, post their problems with all the details, upload images and share the location so that nearby people also get the chance to help you. Create issues to break it into smaller problems, create progress report and set goals. Use the main discussion thread to address the main topic and the issue thread for that particular issue.
If you are a normal user, but have a strong desire to help people, go to the "Discussion" tab, filter topics based on country, keywords etc. Click on a topic and join the discussion.