Patrick Meier Departs for the Qatar Foundation

I've had the great pleasure of working with Patrick Meier for the past 3 years directly as one of the core Ushahidi team members. He's become a close friend, and someone that I respect even more than when we first met. Leading our CrisisMapping endeavors, he's been one of the most visible members of the organization as many of you will have seen or heard him speak in a conference around the world. In fact, I wonder if there's any continent (outside Antarctica) that he hasn't spoken on... :) Above is an image of Patrick, with others from the community, who joined us at our very first community meeting to figure out what Ushahidi should be, and where we should go next with things back in early 2009. This week Patrick announced he will be joining the Qatar Foundation (Computing Research Institute) to work on the next generation of humanitarian technology solutions. We couldn't be happier for him, though of course we'll miss him greatly. The Qatar Foundation have been interested Patrick for some time, after all, there are few people in the world who have a high level of expertise on the intersection of crisis/disaster, mapping and crowdsourced information. It's a unique skillset, especially when paired with Patrick's ability to communicate clearly, whether he's speaking or writing. We're very excited as we know that he's going to have a huge impact on the Qatar Foundation, as well as a continued impact within the CrisisMapping space (ICCM, Standby Task Force, etc). I'm personally excited for Patrick too, as I've seen him in action so often, and have been the recipient of the ideas and lateral thinking that he brings to any discussion. I know we'll keep working with him, now through the Qatar Foundation, and I know he'll also bring in some of the other great minds there to help us solve some of the big problems that we're trying to solve at Ushahidi. Finally, as I said at the beginning, Patrick is a friend - a good one that I've not been able to spend as much time as I'd like as we've always lived in different places. We get to meet in random places, such as Lamu (above), Camden, Miami, and London, and those times have been some of the highlights of my year. It's in these times that you see the true humility of an open thinker, one that aspires to change the way the world works, and has the audacity to try by working at the edges. Funnily enough, my greatest claim to fame might be that I was the one that suggested that Patrick start a blog, which became iRevolution, one of the best resources on crisismapping and revolutionary new thinking in the information space in recent years. Patrick, we all wish you the best of luck at QF, and thank you for your 4 years of amazing contribution to Ushahidi.