Mapping the highest trail on earth

What a view © Alex Treadway

Running the entire 45000km length of the Himalaya via Bhutan, Nepal and India, is the Great Himalaya Trail  - Robin Boustead has taken on the challenge to map the world’s longest and highest walking route.

Robin Boustead is the brains behind the Great Himalaya Trail - what he hopes will one day be a mammoth trek across the entire Himalaya - an epic 157-day trek reaching up 6 2000m, dipping down to 870m, and traversing some of the world's wildest mountain landscapes.

Robin enjoys the scenery© Robin Boustead

A vast expanse of trails © Alex Treadway

This trail takes trekker high into the Himalayan mountain range, over arguably some of the most spectacular scenery in the world.  The trails has so far been mapped through Nepal, Bhutan, India and Pakistan and work is now under on the Indian and Tibetan sections.

Pioneer, Robin Boustead says doing the trail is well worthwhile:  "Get out there and do it!  Get some serious field experience and if you don't have that, then do it with someone who does.  No matter how tough you think it's going to be, it will tougher!  But it is a great, life-changing experience - you genuinely don't come back the same person.  Of course, the views are spectacular too!"

Read the full article here

Robin on the West Col© Robin Boustead

Exploring South Africa through Census Data

Derived from the IsiXhosa word "ulwazi" for knowledge, the guru's at  Code for Africa came up with Wazimap as a way of supplying detailed demographics and election results for everywhere in South Africa, right down to the ward level. Age, income, household goods, employment, toilets, water and other service delivery details across the country from the 2011 Census.

Type in the name of address of a place, then select the location you are interested in from the dropdown.

Hover over graphs to see comparison with the province and country averages.

Statistics are broken down into categories
eg. Service Delivery

Already proven to be successful, Code for Africa has adapted Wazimap for Kenya and Nigeria

Were you born to code?

A radical new initiative launching in South Africa, called WeThinkCode will offer free "world class computer training" to anyone who qualifies. Based on the successful 42 model in France, the school will be run like an incubator and by 2017 aims to produce 1000 qualified IT professionals each year. Their corporate sponsorship model means there are no financial restrictions and is thus particularly accessible for under-privileged students.

Importantly the students at WeThinkCode will learn by solving problems and also complete two 4-month internships during the 2 year programme which has a strong emphasis on mentorship. This will produce well rounded and independently minded techies with practical experience that can enter the workplace and make a real difference. Even though computers and technology dominate our lives, it's still the coder behind the code that really matters.


Are you a tech champion? Sign up and take the challenge

Challenge - Applications of Earth Observation Data

The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and Airbus Defence and Space (ADS) believe there is significant scope to increase the use of earth observation data, in both the public and private sphere, within South Africa. This will lead to a range of benefits, both in terms of commercial competitiveness as well as societal benefit.

In order to achieve these outcomes, SANSA and ADS are searching for novel applications that make use of their large resource of multi-sensor satellite data. SANSA / ADS therefore invite both groups and individuals to submit proposals around the novel use of satellite data.

 View Challenge for further details