My name is Bahaa Hashem and I’m the cofounder of an iOS application I created with two friends called Mapture.
Very simply, our app is designed to allow users to anonymously upload photos and videos on a map. However, we tag the date and time from our servers, and location of the content by using the phone’s GPS, and watermark it on the photo or video. This way we verify the source and authenticity of the content. This is different to any photo sharing or uploading application because the user cannot tamper with the information. As I mentioned before, date and time are taken from our server and they are taken exactly when the photo is snapped. The same is done for location; we pull the location from the phone’s GPS (have to turn on location services to use the app) meaning the user cannot change the the date, time or location at all. This way we guarantee the source and authenticity of all content on Mapture.
For journalists, citizen journalists, bloggers, and newswires we believe this is essential as it brings credibility to the author by showing exactly when and where the photo was taken, preventing readers from doubting that content was either photoshopped or faked in any way.
Our mission is to give the people the power to report something they see credibly, and with a device in their hands.
We’re tired of all the lies and falsified images we are fed in the news and we want to put a stop to this and we believe we can do that with Mapture.
i think ur partener zeyad already posted this her u can join the discussion their and answer some questions .
also I already sent an invitation to zeyad but he didn’t confirm(may be in the spam folder ) . I have just sent u another one now so I hope one of u can make it tomorrow
He did already post and then he handed it over to me because he can’t make it tomorrow unfortunately. The problem is I might not be able to make it over either as I have an event to get to in Alexandria so its going to be a really late call. I will either confirm or cancel late tonight - so sorry about this but we have a lot going on and trying to make everything work =(.
it would be nice if u can manage to come tomorrow , anyway if u couldn’t keep following the online platform , as everything would be documented and uploaded on the platform so everyone can interact and help with futurespotters in finding solutions and ideas .
take alook also at Nadia’s post if u can’t attend tomorrow
It’s great that you posted about your project on Edgeryders; we met at the flat6 networking event…I was with the UNDP team.
Anyway, basically just to give you a quick overview of Spot the Future, we’re working with Edgeryders to find new ways to connect to people like you, doing interesting things that we don’t know about. We are looking for different techniques/strategies to reach out to those we weren’t able to reach before and to encourage collaboration and co-creation as well as to build trust! So it’s an experiment…and it’s going great so far and it’s happening simultaneously in Egypt, Armenia and Georgia.
For your app, I think it has so much potential and you should really consider exploring the development sphere…by linking it to other projects in other realms such as the environment; as Sherif also mentioned during our meeting. So, if someone sees a street light open during the day, for example, or garbage in a certain area, and they take a picture to report it, your app will ensure that it was really taken at that time and place and that it’s authentic.
There’s a lot you could do with mapture and i think it’s an awesome idea, especially in the time we’re living in now; everyone’s skeptical of anything posted online.
Anyway, if you need some advice, help whatever, give us a shout out. and I advise that you use the Mapture project you created on Edgeryders to post updates, questions, challenges your facing etc as I’m sure you’ll get a lot of feedback and help from some great people from the Edgeryders community
