Nairobi Free the Data

Over the last year the Spatial Information Design Lab has been working with the Earth Institute to create a GIS database of Nairobi, Kenya. This database is groundbreaking for those trying to make informed decisions about Nairobi’s future development. While the city of Nairobi has some GIS databases these databases are hard urban planners, policy analyst, and community stakeholders to obtain. This project set out to create a freely available dataset that will allow those interested in Nairobi’s future to use GIS to make informed decisions. Obtaining this type of data in many developing countries is extremely difficult and its provision here will likely have an effect on planning and data policies within the city itself. This database which was started a little over a year ago is near competition, and the first experiment of its use will be for a transportation modeling project for the City of Nairobi.