Public Lab

The Public Laboratory for Open Technology (Public Lab) is a community and nonprofit democratizing science to address environmental issues that affect people. With funding from a 2018 Digital Impact grant, the Public Lab team is developing a set of management tools for privacy-first, user-friendly data input, archiving, and sharing among social sector organizations. Using inexpensive DIY techniques, Public Lab seeks to change how people see the world in environmental, social, and political terms.

Public Lab is made up of activists, educators, technologists, and community organizers who are interested in new ways to promote action, intervention, and awareness through a participatory research model. The Public Lab community began as the Grassroots Mapping project, an effort to produce DIY satellite imagery with balloons and kites, most notably during the 2010 BP oil spill. Public Lab is now broadening its scope to explore new inexpensive and community-led means to measure and explore environmental and social issues.