06-28, 15:00–15:30 (Europe/Tirane), UBT C / N111 - Second Floor
At Bellingcat, a non-profit investigative organization in the Netherlands, we research war crimes, find tiger smugglers, monitor environmental degradation and track extremist hate. To do this, we use "open sources", including public databases, social media posts, and a wide range of geospatial data and tools. The use of these new online sources has dramatically changed investigative journalism and humanitarian accountability research in the past five years, and there remains tremendous potential for further development, especially in the geospatial realm.
In this talk, Bellingcat data scientist Logan Williams will present case studies from our research to illustrate how invaluable open source geospatial tools and data are for "open source" investigative research. Some of the most useful tools for investigators are designed for very different purposes, from academic meterology to outdoor recreation. Additionally, some of Bellingcat's own FOSS geospatial tools, based on Open Street Map and Copernicus satellite data, will be showcased. Finally, the talk will discuss opportunities for deepening the connections between the open source geospatial community and the open source investigation community.
Logan Williams is the data science and visualization lead on Bellingcat's investigative technology team. Williams collaborates across Bellingcat to obtain, organize and analyze data, develop new tools for open source investigations, and communicate complex information with data visualization and cartography. He holds degrees in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and previously developed geospatial data visualization projects at Stamen Design and in the BuzzFeed News Open Lab.