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Got some exciting stuff happening with Bellingcat over the next few weeks, watch the news for all kinds of interesting things. If you like Bellingcat, then this is going to be the month/year for you. Not so great if you don't like Bellingcat, deal with it.
Hopefully by the end of Spring we'll have the new Bellingcat office in The Hague open and operational, which will be the centre of two new major projects, focused on Yemen and local training in The Netherlands.
With The Netherlands training project we'll be running workshops to train locals from a wide variety of backgrounds, both social and professional, to work on projects that have an impact on their own lives, building a Dutch community of open source investigators.
And on Yemen we've been working to develop a systematic process of investigation and archiving of open source material focused on the use of our work in courts, both local and international, but with wider applications to different fields, including advocacy and journalism.
My hope is that by the end of 2019 we'll have a complete process for the investigation & archiving open source material up to a standard that can be used by local & international courts that can be rapidly deployed internally to new conflicts, & shared with other organisations.
While we're aiming for a standard that can be used in justice and accountability, the evidence and analysis we gather will also be used for other areas, such as journalism and advocacy. It's all about creating a solid base that grows a variety of projects and outcomes.
We're also looking at producing a podcast series about our MH17 investigation ahead of the 5th anniversary, and there's also some other big things, some more personal to me, we'll be announcing in the coming weeks.
If everything works out we'll be making huge advancements in how open source investigation is used, developing incredibly archiving systems to make verified conflict information available to those who need it, and spreading what we've learnt to other organisations.
Not bad for a lingerie salesman blogging from his bedsit in London.
Also, I suspect if you're the sort of person who likes tracking the activity of troll campaigns, propaganda focused on people such as myself, and similar topics, you'll have a whole set of new countries to focus on once we get going.
By the start of March we'll have 16 full time members of staff working for Bellingcat, and we're focusing on hiring staff for our Yemen research projects and admin staff. We'll also have a 50/50 gender split in our staff, something I hope to sustain as we grow.
