A group of Auburn students and faculty received the Campus Technology Innovator Award on July 21 for their current research project “Geospatial Mapping of the Coastal Communities of Alabama.”

The project was one of 11 winners from 448 nominations for the Campus Technology Innovator Award. The project is entirely student-run, but led by Dr. Chetan S. Sankar, principal manager and professor of management, and a team of Auburn faculty in the departments of geography, business and engineering.

“What we are doing with this project is seeing if we can use some of the geospatial technologies, like a GPS unit, to map the latitude and longitude of infrastructure facilities, like fire hydrants, water valves or gas meters that need to be recovered after a hurricane or natural disaster hits,” Sankar said. “This is helpful because all of this information is now available to these cities with the utility companies, so if there is a recovery needed, they can track it a lot faster.”

Sankar and Luke Marzen, associate professor of geography, accepted the Innovator Award for the project team at the Campus Technology meeting in Boston.

“I was truly surprised by the attention this project received,” Marzen said. “I was invited to speak at a panel session Tuesday morning that had every seat filled and attendees even standing in back. The award brings publicity and illustrates there is value to getting students involved in real world active learning opportunities to serve local communities.”

Last spring, 40 students from different classes in business, engineering and geography were trained by graduate students to use Geographic Information Systems and GPS technologies.

The students then went to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach to record the infrastructure elements using the GPS systems. So far they have collected 11,661 points and have walked 88 miles.

“I have benefited immensely from working on this project,” said Satish Kuchi, a graduate student in management of information systems. “This project has really helped me to understand that team work is the best possible method to get things done more efficiently. It has also helped me to understand project management, improved my communication and team working skills and taught me new technologies.”

Sankar said the main reason the award was given to this project is because the concept of geospatial mapping of a coastal area is innovative, and within a short period of time, students were trained in new technology systems and actively used these new systems in a project to better the community.

“The Campus Technology Innovators Award we received was very special to us,” said Darrell Rigsby, a graduate student in geography and community planning. “Over the past few months we have been getting more publicity for our project. The more people that know about our project, the more people that can expand upon it in the future so that it can be replicated for other disaster regions, especially along the gulf coast.”

The project team was granted funding for two years in 2009 by the Economic Development Administration. Their future plans include a data collection in Bayou La Batre and Dauphin Island, plans to upload data to Virtual Alabama, develop recovery strategies and training materials and provide data to city and utilities.

“One of the benefits of this project is that various stakeholders that all have an interest in improving the process of cleaning up after a natural disaster are coming together and sharing resources and data which benefits the local communities,” Marzen said. “The students involved in the project get active hands-on learning experiences in geospatial technologies and in working with a team of people. The students have expressed that they like the project because like they are giving back to the communities of Alabama.”

Other major benefits the team has discovered is that 40 percent of the costs can be eliminated if the geospatial data are available online, and the availability of this data will cut the time it takes to recover from damage in half.

“I am thrilled to see that our work is being recognized nationally for its uniqueness and innovation,” said Dr. P.K. Raju, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Auburn Technical Assistance Program. “Most of the credit goes to our students for their significant contribution to the project. As a professor, I am happy to be able to provide my students the essential skills they need to be successful in the real world.”