Solomon Hsiang of the Global Policy Lab will present The Aerial History Project: studying human development with 1.7 million aerial photos, a talk about the international effort to restore, digitize, stitch, and study a massive collection of aerial photography collected by the United Kingdom beginning in 1946 across 65 countries in the then British Empire. The Global Policy Lab uses machine learning to transform this image-based record into structured geographic information to gain insights into human development throughout Africa and the Caribbean during the 20th century.

This lecture commemorates the 10th anniversary of the David Rumsey Map Center. We are excited to mark our 10th anniversary with discussion of a project that weaves archives and technology together, much in the spirit of the Rumsey Center.