cesarharada.com/blog

About Me

Cesar Harada (28) is an French-Japanese inventor and entrepreneur.
Cesar invented a ground-breaking sailing technology, a boat that changes shape, “Protei”. Originally developed to clean up the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Protei is an Open Hardware project now developed by an international community of scientists, engineers and designers for many other applications such as nuclear radiation sensing off Japan, plastic sensing in the Pacific garbage patch, red tide studies in Mexico and much more.
Cesar is also the general coordinator of the future International Ocean Station. Former Project leader at MIT, Cesar teaches Masters in Design & Environment at Goldsmiths University in London. Cesar graduated in 2009 from the Design Interactions course at the Royal College of Arts in London, his collaborative project Open_Sailing received the Ars Electronica Golden Nica award for the [NEXT IDEA].

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Mapping River Dog Mouth, Mobile Alabama



Yesterday we went aerial mapping a landscape that is just about to change radically : restoration of the oyster reef in Mobile Alabama, Dog river mouth - known as Helen Wood Park beach. In two hours from now (2011 January 22 6AM), hundreds of volunteers will come to install a massive oyster reef here. From 8AM today "Volunteers will be deploying approximately 23,000 bags of oyster shells to create new reefs and habitat at the mouth of Dog River" - see them in action here .

 



Aerial mapping Prof. Dawn McKinney & Prof. Leo Denton of the University of Mobile South Alabama. Thanks to Shannon Dosemagen for organizing the trip. 



These are the different reefs and bags of oyster they are installing. 5 non-profit organizations are working together to accomplish this massive landscaping project. 


We took about 5000 aerial pictures that I turned into 3 very large resolution maps to make one huge map (at the top of the post):



Download these full resolution maps to your computer as .zip file (27mb). If you want to learn how to make one of these map, check this post.


This time, in addition of aerial photography, I also took ground samples (~250x microscopy), sand, sediment, organic material taken at regular interval. The idea is : if we are able to say what is on the ground - sometimes we may find oil spilled still - we can qualify and quantify what we see on the aerial pictures. We will come back in a few weeks to map again and see the effects of installing an artificial oyster reef here : "before and after" :) 
sample -1, 20110121 Anne Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 1, 20110121 Anne Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 2, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 3, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 3b, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 3b, 20110121 Anne Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 4, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 5, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 6, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 8, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 10, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 11, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 12, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 14, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabamasample 15, 20110121 Helen Wood Park, Mobile, Alabama

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date : 20110121@15:41, low-tide. 
Location : 30.57562, -88.07847 
Mapping for Grassroots Mapping & LA Bucket Brigade. 
Photos : Prof. Leo Denton and Prof. Dawn McKinney 
Stitching : Cesar Harada 
Left at 10:45 - return 20:30 
Milleage : start 761963 - end 764803

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Re-Posted on the Grassroots Mapping blog page : http://grassrootsmapping.org/2011/01/mapping-river-dog-mouth-mobile-alabama/

Filed under  //  Aerial   Alabama   Grassrootsmapping   Helium   LA Bucket Brigade   LABB   Mapping   Mobile   Nature   Oyster   Reef   Reserve   Restoration   River  
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Air pollution

Air pollution?

Just took that picture today on the way to work... Driving from New Orleans (Louisiana) to Mobile (Alabama). LA Bucket Brigade just celebrated yesterday its 10 years of existence, a non-profit organization, fighting for air quality against big corporations...

Filed under  //  LA Bucket Brigade   LABB   Mobile   NOLA   New Orleans   Phone   Photography   Pollution   air  
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M-PESA


People queuing at the supermarket to transfert money via mobile phone using M-PESA (Safaricom) :

http://www.safaricom.co.ke/index.php?id=745
M-PESA is a Safaricom service allowing you to transfer money using a mobile phone. Kenya is the first country in the world to use this service, which is offered in partnership between Safaricom and Vodafone. M-PESA is available to all Safaricom subscribers (Prepay and Postpay), even if you do not have a bank account. Registration is FREE and available at any M-PESA Agent countrywide. The M-PESA application is installed on your SIM card and works on all makes of handsets.

Amazing. Told you, the future is here in Nairobi. 

Filed under  //  Africa   Banking   Ihub   Kenya   M-PESA   Mobile   Mobile Banking   Nairobi   Phone   Safaricom  
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