Edina Scout’s Project Selected As 2017 Council Eagle Project of the Year
AND ALSO EARNED THE HORNADAY AWARD
Christopher Minge, a junior at Edina High School, was presented with the council’s National Eagle Scout Service Project of the Year Award at the Mustang District Dinner on May 4th. The award recognizes valuable service of an exceptional nature by a Scout through their Eagle Scout leadership service project. Each council can select one project and we had over 700 Eagles last year!
HIS PROJECT
For his Eagle Scout service project, Christopher helped develop an iOS app for the mWater software. The app, mWater Surveyor, allows organizations to track wells and water sources in impoverishment parts of the world, allowing for more efficient organization and handling of resources. Users can map sites such as water points, sanitation facilities, schools, health clinics, or communities and monitor them over time with mobile surveys.
“I saw the opportunity after I learned that Haiti Outreach was using the mWater software and thought it would be useful to have a mobile app to upload and organize data in,” says Christopher. “I realized that this might be my chance to do something truly useful and make a difference.”
Using computer science skills, Christopher invested hours of coding into the project. He led Scouts through the testing and review of the application, including an analysis of features to be added and ways to improve functionality.
In addition to receiving Service Project of the Year, Christopher was awarded the rarely achieved Hornaday Award for his contributions to natural resource conservation. The Hornaday Award requires the Scout to earn several conservation merit badges that aren’t required for Eagle, and his Eagle project must be a conservation project that fits within one of 8 categories.
PROJECT OF THE YEAR AWARD
Christopher received the award for the mWater Surveyor project that uses volunteer data to visually track water sources and their status (functional, broken, contaminated, clean, etc.). The mobile mapping app allows organizations to identify problematic regions, or groups of households far from clean water, and work together with those communities in their well-drilling efforts.
“The most valuable and impactful thing that Boy Scouts taught me are leadership qualities,” says Christopher. “This project allowed me to work with adults and do coding in a workplace setting. I look forward to future opportunities to make a difference.”
The mWater Surveyor app is available for free in the app store!
Dave Arola
Training and Advancement Director
763-231-7262
[email protected]