Globe Town: Open data for sustainability website wins global award

“A new website that opens up the complex world of climate change and how it relates to the individual has won a major global award for a team from the University of Southampton. Globe-Town.org was placed third in the first international ‘Apps for Climate’ competition (#Apps4Climate) held by the World Bank presented at a ceremony in Washington DC... Globe-Town builds heavily on the increasing amount of freely available open data online, with much of it originating from the World Bank’s open data portal which provides a rich variety of well-organized information around all aspects of sustainable development. By opening up the facts of climate change in different countries, Globe-Town shows how no one is isolated from the consequences in an interdependent world. The site also reveals how responding to climate change presents a world of opportunities to inspire individuals and entrepreneurs. The application was conceived by web and sustainability researcher Jack Townsend, who is a program planner for the Sustainability Stream of the Open Knowledge Festival in Finland this September. The sit was developed with a team including four other PhD students from the University’s Web Science Doctoral Training Centre, funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Jack says: ‘The World Health Organisation has estimated that climate change is killing 150,000 people a year. In order to tackle this challenge, we all need to know how it affects us personally and what we can do about it. Globe-Town does this by connecting the global with the local, so we can explore the risks, responsibilities and opportunities of climate change in an increasingly interconnected world.’ Jack continues: ‘The aim of Globe-Town is to open up our world of connections to exploration, whilst bringing home what the things we discover might mean to us personally. We hope to bring more transparency to the rich network of our connections, or, perhaps introduce people to their far-away next-door neighbours.’ Andrea Prieto designed the site graphics, and it was developed by architect Richard Gomer, and Huw Fryer, Will Fyson and Dominic Hobson. Globe-Town is an easy-to-use web application where people can learn about each country’s environment, society and economy, so they can understand the challenges and opportunities that it faces in a changing world. Moreover, they can explore the connections between countries through relationships such as trade, migration or air travel. Stories can then emerge of how climate risks can be transmitted between distant countries, for instance the impact of the 2011 Thai floods on the Japanese economy. Similarly, the user can learn about shared responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions through the things we import, or opportunities to act to mitigate and to adapt, such as investing in renewable energy projects abroad. This is the first version of the app, and the team are very keen to receive feedback and ideas for version two. Jack concludes, ‘We are exploring a wide range of possibilities for the future of Globe-Town, such as enabling people to crowd-fund projects, participate in e-activism, or to contribute content so they can take action about what they discover. With ideas like these – along with the existing discussion feature – Globe-Town can go beyond exploring our existing links to forging new ones around the world. After all, we all live in the same Globe-Town.’"