New England Complex Systems Institute
Complaints quantified
NECSI plots tweets by sentiment, positive or negative. A cluster of negative tweets in Queens, New York, for example, led to the discovery of a leaky sewer pipe.
MapBox
On-the-spot updates
"In some places, satellite images can be 10 years old," says engineer Bobby Sudekum. "You can fly a drone and process images of something that happened just hours ago." Read more >>
Micromappers
Geotagged disaster relief
To make use of the vast amount of information placed on social media during natural disasters, volunteers sift through geotagged posts from affected areas, plotting them on maps for aid workers. Read more >>
A version of this article appeared in the April 2014 issue of Fast Company magazine.
