centre for community mapping
We craft Shared Knowledge Platforms
The Centre for Community Mapping (COMAP – comap.ca), is a not-for-profit with a mission to:
- research, develop, supply and sustain information technology and communications services (ITC) to strengthen civil society and
- to spin-off for-profit enterprises that have beneficial socio-economic impact.
COMAP’s web and mobile shared knowledge platforms for socio-economic, cultural and environmental innovation use collaborative geomatics, mediated social network and customized services to support partnerships among members of geographic and virtual communities of practice whose common goal is strengthening civil society within a sustainable economy.
Examples of our work with communities of practice applications (CoP Apps): The Mennonite Heritage Portrait, Building Stories, the Flowing Waters Information System, the ArtsBuild Bricks & Mortar System, the KIM-UNU platform, the Native Community Centre of Toronto First Story App that will feature First Story POI content with several tours on the PanAmPath during the PanAm Games in 2015.
COMAP uses the WIDE Toolkit of software services, developed by the Computer Systems Group at the University of Waterloo, to deploy web and mobile platforms for shared community and ecosystem information and to create frameworks and services for communities of practice applications
COMAP federates CoP Apps information with open data from governments, corporations and non-government organization, spatial data and data derived from algorithmic operations to create Atlas Apps. Atlas Apps are inter-active spatial data capture and visualization services that result from the layering of content and data services. Atlas Apps for predictive watershed modeling, community economic development, aboriginal community asset mapping and duty to consult services are in development.
Atlas Apps will be spun off with for-profit partners by WIDE Software Systems Corp. operating as WIDEAtlas.
The map below presents the work of First Story, a community-based and collaborative, based at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, that involves Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who research and share Toronto’s rich and diverse Indigenous heritage via a variety of popular education initiatives
'Many Indigenous communities have left their mark on our city’s past and present and continue to shape its future. The First Story app is an interactive map accessing original stories, photographs, archival documents, audio and video clips that illuminate the evolving Indigenous history of the Toronto area. First Story endeavors to bridge traditional knowledge with social media, inviting users to explore Toronto’s history and Events as told from the perspective of Indigenous communities'