Daniel Ponce-Taylor is a Regional Director at Global Vision International in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. He has found MotionX-GPS to be useful in every aspect of life — for work and for play.

Daniel told us, “I feel I have been using MotionX to it’s full potential. I work with GIS for the marine conservation project I direct, and I have been using MotionX to obtain GPS coordinates, routes and points, to later download them and use them on ArcGIS. On top of that I have been using the software to track and map my runs whilst I am training for the NYC 2009 Marathon (November). It’s been a great tool so far, and really accurate.”

He also plans to use MotionX-GPS to climb Pico de Orizaba (the third largest peak in North America), to participate in extreme team sports challenges, and to track his climbs during the GVI Volcano Challenge in November.

by Matt from The Old Town Outfitters

How Daniel is using MotionX-GPS:

GIS Project
Daniel maintains two research sites in Mexico, both on the Caribbean coast of Quintana Roo. The idea is to study to overall health of the local reefs in order to see baseline changes and recommend better management strategies. They bring in people from all over the world and train them to dive and identify coral/fish species. Once they are trained, they start collecting data. The data is analyzed and gets transformed into management strategies, which are then used by local partners to manage the coastal and marine resources in a more sustainable manner. At each of their research sites they have “monitoring points” where they return to collect data, to see how the reef changes with time, conditions, etc. They’ve been using MotionX-GPS to help them quickly relocate and return to the monitoring points.

Extreme Sports
Daniel and a crew of friends are planning to climb Pico Orizaba (the third largest peak in North America) later this year or early 2010. They will use MotionX-GPS to track the climb and to avoid getting lost. They also recently created a team that will participate in extreme sports challenges (mountain biking, kayaking, orienteering, diving, etc..), and again will use MotionX to help train for these events, and of course track to actual events themselves.

MotionX-GPS recorded Daniel’s path to a dive site at a wreck called Mamma Mia.

11km training run through Playa del Carmen, Mexico

GVI Volcano Challenge
Daniel is hiking/climbing four Guatemalan volcanoes in five days (one of them is the highest in Central America). The idea is to raise funds for GVI Charitable trust and the projects GVI runs there (mainly education and schooling). For this event he has started training (combined with marathon preparation) with MotionX-GPS. There will be people from the US, UK and Guatemala training at the same time. He will use MotionX during the hikes to map and record their daily tracks. Check out their blog for more info.

One of four volcanos from the GVI Volcano Challenge: