Community Empowerment Through Geospatial Data Collection. Presenting the Empower App: A Secure, Scalable and Configurable Mobile Platform

Community awareness and rural development play a crucial role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To effectively address the global challenges outlined by the SDGs, gathering relevant data and insights at the grassroots is essential. Addressing global problems requires implementing localised solutions tailored to the specific needs of each community, recognizing that these needs vary across different communities. The potential of a flexible real-time geospatial survey platform that helps in finding such solutions is explored here. The geo-tagged empirical data gathered through the platform encompasses infrastructure, socioeconomic, natural resource, and environmental data. Prioritising informed consent and privacy protection, participants are made aware of the purpose of data collection and its use. The example of the N agarcoil Water Survey highlights the collection of data related to water availability, quality, and usage patterns, enabling valuable insights for water resource management. Future improvements may involve incorporating advanced data collection methods, integrating with existing datasets, ensuring data integrity by removal of duplicate and outdated data, and integrating with government portals like Open Government Data and GatiShakti.