Every year, MIT Solve calls for tech-based solutions to global challenges and selects the most promising pitches among thousands of applications. This year, we entered Mapeo in the Solve Resilient Ecosystems Challenge, alongside 418 other solutions from around the world. We’re honored to announce that Mapeo was one of seven chosen Solver teams for this challenge.
In addition to being named a Solver team, Mapeo won additional prizes at Solve Challenge Finals on Friday, September 17:
- The GM Prize for solutions that help create smart, safe, and sustainable communities around the world.
- The ServiceNow Prize for solutions that connect communities to develop, share, and replicate best practices for carbon absorption and decarbonization, and;
- The AI for Humanity Prize -- made possible by the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation -- for solutions leveraging data science, artificial intelligence, and/or machine learning to benefit humanity, as well as to those planning to utilize these technologies to amplify their impact.
Our team is thrilled with the news, which is a validation of both our technology and our approach, as we’ve built every aspect of Mapeo - from concept to design to implementation - in deep partnership with our Indigenous community partners.
“In 2015 when we started to map with our elders, we were creating a new system and combining two worlds - that of our oral tradition with the technical world that Digital Democracy introduced us to. Together we built the open source application Mapeo for everyone to use. We were using it then, and we are still using it to defend our lands. Mapeo was born of the Indigenous experience, and we are glad that the tech world is now also recognizing its value with this prize. We hope that through Mapeo we can share something from the jungle with others, and that others, including other Indigenous people around the world can also benefit from what we helped create.” ~ Oswando Nenquimo, Co-Founder and Director of Monitoring and Territory Defense at Alianza Ceibo
Thanks to Solve, we’re receiving financial support to grow Mapeo, and engaging with a network of support, coaching, communications, mentorship and more. We’re honored to be joining the MIT Solve community and looking forward to the year ahead!