Development Intrapreneurs' Networks

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In the first two weeks of May this year I worked with drone experts Matt Cua and the father-and-son team of Walter and Oliver Volkmann to demonstrate the accuracy of drones as survey instrument.

Matt Cua is one of the hottest tech start-up guys in the Philippines today. He has linked his company, SkyEye, with a network of universities and colleges, tapping their expertise to use the imagery produced by his drones. 

Walter and Oliver Volkmann's outfit, MicroAerial, is based in Florida. Walter is a professional surveyor. Oliver is the drone and GPS expert. Together they have used drones to survey properties in several places around the world.

We wanted to demonstrate that drone survey data can be as accurate as Total Station measurements.  I think we were fairly successful; our experiments showed a difference of only about 5 cm between drone and TS measurements.

We’re now working for the adoption of a formal policy recognizing drones as one more survey instrument, like the TS or Real Time Kinematic GPS (which was officially sanctioned through Land Management Circular 2015-01). When that happens, Philippine Geodetic Engineers will have one more tool to work with. Because they can do survey measurements faster, drones can lead to cheaper subdivision surveys - leading, we hope, to more Filipinos getting titles to their lands.
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While that work is significant, what amazed me more was how all the players came together. 

I heard about Matt Cua from Mayor Sandy Javier, Mayor of Javier (that's right, same name) Municipality in Leyte, who is also President of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines. Mayor Javier had engaged Matt’s team to help find the best place to open a new road.  They did it by flying over the area with drones and generating ortho-rectified photos which allowed them to evaluate several route options - and even count the number of coconut trees that would have to be felled for each possible route.

I asked my friends in the mapping community to introduce me to Matt. It was Maning Sambale, then based in the Philippines and working with OpenStreetMap, who arranged for our meeting.

Walter Volkmann was introduced to us by Peter Rabley, head of Omidyar Network (an organization set up by Pierre Omidyar of eBay fame). Rabley and ON gave us a grant so we could bring Walter and Oliver over.

Rabley leaned about the people I was working with through a video about the Residential Free Patent, which was funded by Overseas Development Institute, a UK based think-tank.

He also happens to be the guy who taught me and my friends GIS way back in 1992-1993.
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I’ve always noticed that effective development reformers have a knack for building and nurturing a network of contacts. This allows them to gather information, access resources, and execute plans faster. It also helps them to connect with decision-makers and sponsors.

They seem to do this naturally - it’s part of who they are. Me, I’m just learning to do it deliberately. I’ve been trying to implement an idea I got from LinkedIn, maintaining a list of the most significant 150 people in my work and keeping in touch with them.

The other things that I find amazing about the way DIs network is that they are able to find anyone they need. Eng’r Marilyn Pono (with the Planning Office of Surigao del Norte Provincial Government) told me she never says no to a new assignment, even if she doesn’t know anything about it, because she can always find an expert on that topic.  I guess this is related to the idea that there are only six degrees of separation between us and anyone we need to contact.
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Now as we move forward with our drone-as-survey instrument agenda, I’m excited to meet new contacts. Our fearless leader, Atty Erwin Tiamson, has already introduced us to Eng’r Apol Agustin in the Land Management Bureau. He also knows somebody who knows somebody…
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Who are the 150 most significant people in your work? When was the last time you got in touch with any of them?

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