Satellite images of rooftops provide poverty indicators

In 2014, DataKind sent two volunteers to work with GiveDirectly, an organisation that makes cash donations to poor households in Kenya and Uganda. In order to better identify villages with households that are in need, the volunteers developed an algorithm that classified village roofs in satellite images as iron or thatch - because there is a strong correlation between the number of roofs in a village that are iron and the village's relative wealth.

http://www.datakind.org/blog/using-satellite-images-to-understand-poverty/

Writer: DataKind
Publication: DataKind