ValYou

“Letting you set the values that you value”

Definition of the problem.

When investment or development decisions are being made, decision makers will often focus on the dollar value of the solution being proposed. While this is a valid measure to use, it can often lead us to overlook the many other values that people hold with respect to the development area proposed. Cultural concerns, ecological impacts and access to people and resources.

Often the ability to consider these other competing values is difficult. There are no standard measures or data sets that we can use, and what data is available is generally dry and factual and doesn’t represent the emotional and cultural values that are hidden in the data.

Vision Statement

Our goal has been to find a way to make these values accessible in an easy to use fashion, it should allow the observer to weigh the values according to their own - or to the affected peoples own value system. This should show how their development will impact these communities, and will allow them to act in a more sensitive and informed manner.

Challenges

There is a lot of data out there - we have had to constrain our selection to a reasonable subset to enable us to show how we envision the whole system working.

Our internal data format is very simple and will enable us to easily add more data metrics. The data does need to be processed to ensure we reflect a measurable value that is consistently applied across all categories.

Today, we have chosen the following data sets - Aboriginal and Indigenous Culture , Population Density, Ecological diversity, conservation and protected areas, Mining, and Energy .

Data used in our project

Each value category has been derived from a curated selection of several data sources. We’ve collected data from the ABS, SLIP, Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Aboriginal heritage places, National Title Tribunal, Department of Mines and Petroleum, Department of Parks and Wildlife and the atlas of living australia.

Many of the data sources have metrics that need some calculation to derive a reasonable value - for measures of land area we have calculated the ratio of the area covered within the statistical boundaries, for single point values like mine sites we have used a total count in each area, for some values we have weighted them according to classification, and for some values we have had to apply some statistical algorithms to provide a smoother range.

The Solution

Our solution uses an interactive mapping application. The tool allows people to set a value measure for each of the available categories. As the values are changed, the map will change to show how the land use actually reflects the values chosen.

The Team

ValYou was brought to you by the awesome hacker team of Karoline Kolman, Adrian Smith, Herdy Handoko, Kenneth Loh, John Bryant, Samuel Wee, and Euan de Kock.