A Whiteboard Video for the Geospatial Revolution

Produced for a non-profit, Geomakers, which brings together the geospatial revolution and the DIY movement for parents, teachers, and kids.

This is an exciting time in three seemingly different areas.  

Something special is happening with MAPS, how individuals make STUFF, and how we SHARE information.   

Both a GEOSPATIAL REVOLUTION and a MAKERS REVOLUTION are afoot, and the OPEN SOURCE REVOLUTION is ensuring that their fruits will be shared globally.   

Through creating MAPS, making STUFF, and SHARING information, we are igniting the GEOMAKER REVOLUTION. 

Believe it or not, we are all EXPLORERS. 

We all have a natural curiosity about our surroundings. 

We wonder what’s looming over that hill. 

We want to see where we are, in relation to other people and unfamiliar areas. 

We also want to know faster routes to work. 

Recorded history makes this crystal clear. 

The Neanderthals explored. The Greeks explored. Marco Polo, Zheng He, Columbus, Magellan, Lewis and Clark, Sacagawea, Jacques Cousteau, Sir Edmund Hillary, and Neil Armstrong all explored.  

You also explored on your last family vacation. 

Maps are tangible illustrations about humans’ adventures, and explorations. MAPS are tools that have helped us since the times of the earliest humans. 

And companies, like GOOGLE, continue to explore today. Maps and the act of mapping help satisfy our geographic curiosity. 

We are also MAKERS. 

As a species, humans build things to solve problems… To make tools we need… To make capabilities that help us explore. 

Our present-day technologies are changing the way we make. We no longer need BIG COMPANIES to prototype our ideas. We don’t need large contracts to fabricate our dreams.  

We are on the brink of a game-changing, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) industry.  

There are thousands of people emerging today from the MAKER movement who are industrializing the DIY spirit. 

And thanks to 3D Printers, laser etchers and cutters, smart phones, commodity GPS chips, and other amazing new technology, people are MAKING at an exciting rate. We are beginning to own our means of production! 

Today’s innovative cavemen and explorers are coming out of their garages and secret underground laboratories.  

Today’s MAKERS are building in open communities with access to MAKER tools, and sharing their ideas. 

The combination of the web, powered by DIY fuel, democratizes tools of invention and production. 

GEOMAKERS make physical THINGS which helps us understand, explore and NAVIGATE and UNDERSTAND the world around us. 

What you need, can be learned and shared online. 

We share GEO-RECIPES so that people across the world can download other GEOMAKERS' instructions, and do with them what they will. 

So, we invite you to GEOMAKE with us.

Join your friends in this “GEOMAKING ecosystem” and cross-pollinate your ideas. 

If you’re not good at building things, that’s ok.  

You can DREAM of ideas others should work on - as a GEODREAMER. 

If you’re not good at ideas, but like to build, then you can MAKE dreams a reality. 

And if you want to start your own adventure, BOOST your friends’ projects by building their ideas, collecting data in your backyard, and posting your successes as a GEOBOOSTER so others can learn from your experience. 

All of us are GEOMAKERS. 

So strap a GPS-enabled camera onto your bike. Launch a mapping balloon with your friends.  

Build a GEOMAKER widget on your backpack when you climb that mountain.  

Create a 3D model of your favorite public library. Put your discoveries on a map.  

Come join your GEOMAKER FAMILY and start dreaming, learning, building, and sharing.