Hi to all,

I would like to introduce myself and share my interest of being part of HOTOSM board.

I have had the privilege to participate in various projects involving Humanitarian Mapping. As a volunteer I have been representing OpenStreetMap and HOTOSM in different forums and I am Co-Founder of the Geochicas initiative in the one we want to impulse more female presence in Geospatial technologies and increase the number of women adding Open Data in OpenStreetMap.

Most recently I participated as HOT volunteer in Guatemala. HOTOSM Team was supporting the Clinton Health Access Initiative and the Guatemala Ministry of Health to assist local technicians who are in the field all year fighting diseases such as Dengue, Zika, Chingkonkuña, and Malaria in the area of Escuintla. HOT arrived in Guatemala to support the Ministry of Health with the use of Open Data Kit (ODK) and OpenMapKit (OMK) in order to have a more detailed census and action plan using open source tools so the goal to eliminate malaria can be tracked and achieved by 2020. I participated in the training activities with the HOTOSM team.

Since 2014 I became fascinated with HOTOSM and OSM when I realized all the potential it could have to change people realities and how we can improve their lives so I started getting involved in the Open Data and Open Mapping world. In 2016 on behalf of HOTOSM I received the honor of being one of the 50 Digital Leaders of Mexico and last year INEGI (after a few years of exchanging communication with them) invited OpenStreetMap Mexico to be part of the Consulting Council to be able to review their strategy and tools before launching to the public.

HOTOSM has helped me to educate diverse organizations about the importance of Geospatial Open Data. I believe as a board member I can help to make decisions that will be shaping the future of the organization and I consider the way we currently maintain the Voting Members is not sustainable, in the short term HOTOSM will be having a large number of voting members without really being involved in the organization decisions and we need to change that.

Thanks in advance for your time on reading my manifiesto,

Miriam @mapanauta