Sustainable Innovations (SI), a US based nonprofit organization requested GIS assistance in late 2016. SI harvests rooftop rainwater to provide safe drinking water to rural communities in the state of Rajasthan India. Currently, SI collects 15 million liters of rainwater annually and provides safe drinking water to 10,000 people. They are expanding their program, called Aakash Ganga or River from the Sky, to bring water to 250,000 people.
The recruitment for the pilot project resulted in selecting Brynn Lacabanne and Sonal Raisinghani. They worked on a pilot project that consisted of digitizing two villages and creating workflows for the possibility of an expanded project. Four students from Miami University in Ohio also contributed a great deal to the project as part of a semester-long GIS focused project: Kate Moran, Jenna Tiller, Glenn Trepeta, and Scott Young. Jenna and Kate stayed on with the project after the school year.
SI published a blog about their efforts. The digitizing was done in OpenStreetMap so it is available to anyone. Mapbooks were subsequently created using Esri software for use on the ground. As of January 2018, the project was put on hold due to complications implementing Aakash Ganaga in the field; however, the volunteers successfully digitized and created mapbooks for 9 villages, and created detailed workflow documentation in case the project is revived in the future.