The software,  specifically developed for mountain rescue, will allow search managers to record their pre-planning and search strategy of incidents more accurately with a laptop and printer was developed by Map Maker

This digital cartography company was set up by Eric Dudley (right) and is based in Carradale, Kintyre, although it originated in Cambridge, only moving to Kintyre in 1997.

"Our clientele is international and our business is entirely over the internet,"  says Dudley "so we can work from where we wish. We have clients in over 100 countries which range from forestry managers in Scotland, to land-mine clearers in Afghanistan, and Inuit researchers tracking wandering Moose,"

"We started the company because we felt that conventional Geographical Information System(GIS) software was too complex for many people working in developing countries with limited computer skills and limited budgets" he explains.

"Once we got going, it soon became apparent that there were plenty of people in Europe and North America who were not computer experts but who had a need to make maps, rather than simply to view maps. These include people such as foresters, archaeologists, ecologists, and farmers.

"We have a policy of giving away our software for free to individuals and non-governmental organisations in Africa. In addition, in 2005, we set up a charity, the Map Maker Trust , the principal project of which is an on-line map library for Africa," he says.

Author of The Critical Villager, Dudley considers in his book the difficulties of providing effective development aid to the Third World.  The high rate of failure in aid projects is often ascribed to inadequate consideration of local culture and conditionsm and he considers how community-based technical aid can be made more effective and sustainable.

Arguing that community-based participatory research and "transfer of technology" are not rival models of development,  but complementary components of effective aid, he calls for development workers, policy makers, and researchers to put themselves in the place of the intended beneficiaries of aid, and suggests concrete principles for action and research.

Despite the wide range of cultures and circumstances, a set of concrete principles that inform the selection of new technologies and practices will be important in guiding design of aid interventions.