Ruben Martin and I discuss recent highlights and what’s coming up in the humanitarian open mapping community.

What’s covered this week in brief?

Syria / Turkey earthquake response // Community Working Group mentorship programme // OSM Ethiopia community-led activation // Community research on barriers to women’s participation in OSM // International Women’s Day // Month activites and events // Mappy quote of the week

What’s happened this week?

Syria / Turkey earthquake response: The response to the Turkey Syria earthquake has continued, with more than 8,500 mappers contributing to the data.

The validation of the data is still a heavy task, and the validation team is working so hard to keep up with the volume of mapping. Please be careful with your mapping and make sure the data that you create and they review is as good as it can be! This video from Becky Candy should help you if you are new to mapping.

Also want to congratulate Said for receiving UN Mapper of the Month for his role in coordinating the data response in the days following the earthquake.

Community Working Group: The Community Working Group mentorship program is developing well, following the pilot programme last year. The programme is designed and will be published soon and recruitment for mentors and mentees is expected to open in early April.

Ethiopia community-led activation: Important to remember that the recent earthquakes aren’t the only crises people are facing and so want to highlight OSM Ethiopia’s efforts to support the humanitarian response to the climate crisis in Ethiopia and to amplify their call for mappers to come and join them.

Community research: Benedicta from the HOT community team has launched a piece of research looking at the barriers for women’s participation in the OpenStreetMap community, and we want to encourage as many people as possible to fill out the survey and share it with their networks as well as attending the associated webinar later in the month (details to come).

What is coming up?

There are events and activities related to International Women’s Day (IWD) / Month happening throughout March across the OpenStreetMap / open mapping ecosystem.

Find information here on the HOT IWD scoller and here on the OSM blog (alongside a nice profile of Geoladies Philippines) and here on the Geochicas’ map.

Mappy quote of the week:

We have been reviewing the HOT unSummit programme pilot and this quote from Carrol Chan jumped out at me (she was talking about the Pacific GIS Conference and thanking the organisers)…

“There’s something genuine about the connections formed in OSM and grassroots geospatial commmunities, and these tend to transcend boundaries.”