Mapzen is an open source mapping lab building and supporting open data and software to promote a healthy mapping ecosystem. Based out of the Samsung Accelerator, we support the geo community through building tools and collaborating on open source mapping projects. We believe that a healthy mapping ecosystem is one that is diverse, sustainable, and accessible to all.
We’re focused on core components of geo platforms, including search, rendering, navigation, and data. We take a radical approach to working on these components—we give them directly to you, for free.
We design things that can be provided as a service, but don’t have to be—tools that developers at any level can easily set up and use themselves. We don’t want to lock users into proprietary platforms, relying on black boxes they can’t take apart. That’s why we work on individual components, modular building blocks that anyone can use for better maps. We build things so you can build things.
Maps are and for centuries have been incredibly powerful tools for shaping how we see the world and how we live in it. Open-source map technologies follow a long tradition of community-powered cartography. Strengthening that community is core to our success, and all of our work begins at that level. Mapzen starts where you are.
Thanks Randy, Matt and Alyssa for the chat!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
