[OpenRelief Developer] OpenRelief Collaboration

[Shane Coughlan]

Hi Dirk

On Jun 15, 2012, at 6:27 PM, Dirk Gorissen wrote:
> Shane wrote:
>> I just have a couple of starter questions:
>> (1) would this be in the ballpark of OpenRelief working with Southampton or with you as an individual? (both are cool, just want to clarify)
> 
> Just to clarify, I work in the aeronautical engineering dept in a team
> that does a lot of UAV work, though my background is actually in
> computer science so I mostly do software, supporting the designers who
> actually design the airframe. While I am very time constrained at the
> moment, I can try to help out with the software side where useful as
> well as keep an eye on the dev list and provide some pointers &
> connections if relevant. I will also discuss the project with some of
> my colleagues who do the main UAV design/manufacture work. There
> seemed to be some interest so maybe they could provide some input as
> well.
> Probably ideal would be if we could get a student or group of students
> to take this up as their design project assignment or work on it as
> part of their Bachelor/Master/PhD projects (starting next term). Is
> there a TODO list or wishlist somewhere with stuff you would like to
> see happen (ranging from the basic fixes to ambitious goals)? I can
> then bring this up with the professors here (who would have to approve
> everything).

Having a group of students contribute is an excellent idea. Let's make it happen.

We do not have a unified to-do list yet, though obviously that's something we need. I will start that ball rolling for next week. Look out for the email entitled "milestones / to-do list" and please help us shape that into something also suitable for the research side of things.

> One of the question, is there a list of institutions/companies
> currently involved in OpenRelief, especially in the UK? This would
> help with further collaboration, particularly if Southampton have an
> existing relationship with them already. Also, is there any source of
> funding available, or would OpenRelief be interested in
> co-authoring/supporting research proposal grants around the project?

There are various companies contributing to OpenRelief in terms of manpower and occasionally funding, though this is all ad-hoc and part of our respective community outreach. Initial prototypes were funded by my company (Opendawn) and time, equipment and travel were funded by some other companies (Codethink, AB Open, Nanode, Toradex), but next step regarding prototyping budget is to launch an Association to accept and distribute donations. That association would be very open to co-authoring/supporting research proposals around the project. Let's expand on that concept in another thread.

>> (2) Why did Taarifa fork from Ushahidi?
> 
> I think Mark Iliffe (in CC), who heads the project, is best placed to
> explain the rationale and vision here.

Great. I'm just curious, and it would help us to understand how to allocate resources.

Regards

Shane