Slightly delayed news as we get all the various logistics together for the award event, but we’re very excited today to announce that the trustees over at AF-Boston have officially chosen the MIT Media Lab’s Jeffrey Yoo Warren as our April Awesome Fellow!

Jeff will be using his fellowship to pursue his projects into Grassroots Mapping, a series of experiments that launch low-cost community satellites built from balloons, kites, and inexpensive digital cameras to create gorgeous aerial maps that have more than 100 times the resolution than those offered by Google. The idea is to broadly democratize the technology for mapping, and help communities understand the landscape around them.

In other words, it completely rocks.

You can learn more about Jeff’s work on Grassroots Mapping here and see the latest photos from the project. Their latest, an ambitious idea to track the spread of the Gulf oil spill by engaging local communities on the coastline, is seriously amazing. The data will be released into the public domain, where it will assist legal and environmental efforts in the years to come.

Stay tuned for the award ceremony and presentation details in the next few weeks!

[UPDATED 6/1/10 — Also, it’s been brought to our attention that Jeff’s set up a Kickstarter entry for the Grassroots Mapping project, if you’re interested in donating to the effort!]