Pitch
Great adaptation ideas can come from unexpected sources. Here a web to share knowledge, support initiatives and collaborate on adaptation.
Description
Summary
We believe there is a gap on the way in which global knowledge regarding valuable data, experiences and real initiatives on climate adaptation have been delivered to the ‘crowd’.
We propose a web platform available to the crowd and aiming to exchange experiences, information, views and any type of support on climate adaptation.
Our platform shall include the following features:
- ACCESS TO CLIMATE ADAPTATION DATA
- REAL TIME ANALYSIS OF ADAPTATION INITIATIVES
- CROWDSUPPORT FOR CLIMATE ADAPATATION
The platform shall be open to practitioners, business, charity and the crowd in general that is looking something related to climate adaptation, including but not limited to:
- Climate change adaptation/mitigation definitions
- Climate adaptation science -> statistics and data analysis
- Real adaptation projects (successful/unsuccessful) -> statistics and real time data analysis
- Platform for entities (NGO, local communities and governments) aiming to find funds to finance climate adaptation projects
- Governments, private entities and donors in general aiming to fund climate adaptation initiatives.
- The crowd in general aiming to cover any type of need related to climate adaptation.
Category of the action
Adaptation
What actions do you propose?
We propose the creation of a web platform for the crowd to share experiences, information, hard data analysis, statistics, funding opportunities and any type of need, all related to climate adaptation.
COCOA platform shall include the following features:
- ACCESS TO CLIMATE ADAPTATION DATA
A lot of organizations and people are interested in climate adaptation data, but do not get access to it, or if they do manage to access the data, advanced statistics analysis are sometimes needed. The platform will aim to make data more accessible and easier to use, and hence visual analysis shall play a vital role in showing the information. We believe decision makers, politicians as well as education at almost all levels lack adequate tools to understand/explain how we can actually adapt to climate change.
- REAL TIME ANALYSIS OF ADAPTATION INITIATIVES
Similarly, information available on real adaptation initiatives is mainly addressed to successful cases, but there are certainly lots of adaptation projects that cannot be considered successful. We want to analyze the reasons why such initiatives did not progress as expected. As our web platform allows to capture information per adaptation initiative such as host community (rural/urban), degree of local participation, execution time, expected outcomes, among others, we can use data mining techniques to infer knowledge that might provide insights on the success or failure of given initiatives.
The web platform shall also offer a visual representation focusing on two aspects: 1) General information, describing main features per initiative (e.g. budget, local participation) and; 2) Inferred knowledge, showing hidden relationships and patterns that were discovered by data mining techniques (e.g. correlation between local participation and success). The former provides an overall picture per initiative whereas the last one offers an analytical representation to not only understand the reasons why initiatives succeed or failed but also learn from failures so that mistakes can be avoided in the future.
- CROWDSUPPORT FOR CLIMATE ADAPATATION
We believe everybody should get involved in climate adaptation because this is a challenge that requires all humankind. Local adaptation should be much more effective and feasible with global support from the crowd. Our idea of ‘crowdsupport’ is threefold:
- CROWDFUNDING FOR ADAPTATION
Climate finance is more than 80% directed to mitigation, and this is because bureaucrats in the international climate talks enjoy too much the discussion on how to achieve mitigation emissions caps that will stabilize GHG concentrations in the atmosphere. But, climate change is already occurring and affecting communities worldwide!
We need to move fast and adapt to climate change. Several online platforms – at the private and governmental levels – have been developed to match mitigation initiatives and financing, i.e.:
But no platform has been developed for entities to raise funds for concrete adaptation initiatives. Our platform shall have that space as well: it will be a marketplace for NGOs, local governments and communities to show their concrete adaptation project ideas and to leverage funds through crowdfunding for implementation. These same projects shall be monitored and analysed by the web platform, showing the real outcomes and learning of projects promoted by the platform.
- PROMOTE ADAPTATION FUNDING AVAILABLE
Likewise, governments, AID agencies, private entities with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) motivations, and donors in general aiming to fund climate adaptation initiatives shall be able to post and promote their application windows and requirements through our web platform.
- CROWD-COLLABORATION EXCHANGE
Adaptation initiatives do not need only money. Sometimes they may need advice, or volunteers, or construction materials, or even technical equipment that could be discharged somewhere else. Climate adaptation needs collaboration and exchange from all of us. What is needed is crowd-collaboration. Thus, the web platform shall allow adaptation practitioners to post their needs on adaptation, whatever these are, so the crowd can collaborate to solve these needs by exchanging any valuable resource. We aim to solve local adaptation needs with global crowd-collaboration. The platform will promote and pay special attention to initiatives in which there is a high percentage of local participation/involvement. We believe community activism and involvement are attributes of sustainable communities and that great adaptation initiatives could come from unexpected sources. This measure can allow us to understand the impact of local participat ion on the success of adaptation initiatives.
Thus, the web service platform shall be open to practitioners, business, charity and the crowd in general that is looking something related to climate adaptation.
Who will take these actions?
Communities of practitioners – understood as a group of people with a common interest – involved in the climate resilience field.
Where will these actions be taken?
The actions would be taken in two forms:
- globally through information analysis and exchange on the online web platform, and
- in specific geographic areas and communities where the platform allows to canalise funds and support for the implementation of adaptation initiatives.
What are other key benefits?
- Gather information on adaptation initiatives around the globe that shall allow the preparation of visual analysis and statistics on climate resilience. This information and analysis should be of great relevance for entities involved in the climate regime. The exposure of certain data analysed could generate important rewards for the sustainable operation of the web service platform.
- For adaptation initiatives looking for funds the fact of being exposed to the crowd and leverage the implementation through crowdfunding could avoid sometimes bureaucratic processes with governmental entities.
What are the proposal’s costs?
The estimated costs for the web platform are USD 25,000.
Time line
The web platform development requires two main tasks: ‘front end’ and ‘back end’ development. Front end needs to address web design and functionality implementation, this task shall require 3-4 months.
Front End
+ Web Design - 1 month
+ Web Functionality - 2 months
The back end development addresses the design of the information system, database set up and the final integration. This task shall require an estimated time of 8 months.
Back End
+ System Information Design - 2 months
+ Database set up - 2 months
+ Implementation - 4 months
Related proposals
N/A
References
- www.gapminder.org is our reference on how we would like to visually show information on climate adaptation initiatives, successful and unsuccessful.
- www.weadapt.org, www.aaknet.com, www.cdkn.org are platforms with lots of information on climate adaptation, but these lack of visual analysis of information in the Gapmider style.
- www.needish.com, www.wikipedia.org and www.reddit.com are crowdsourcing platforms that we want to analyse and emulate in the context of climate adaptation for the exchange of 'crowdsupport'.
By:
COCOA
