Sophie Mower
StaffSenior Manager, Community Services
Bio
Sophie leads the Community Services team, a sub-pillar of HOT’s Community team. Using an open innovation approach, Sophie works closely with regional and functional teams to develop, test, and scale different elements of community support. This includes:
- Providing workflows to guide user-centred programming
- Facilitating dialogues and learning processes to enable peer-to-peer knowledge sharing
- Enabling the development of strong foundations for best practices for community building initiatives through supporting investment initiatives
- Making actionable recommendations (informed by rigorous people-led research) for sustainable community development
Sophie joined the HOT team in April 2020 but has been contributing to the HOTs mission as a volunteer since 2017. Sophie’s background is in community development and Inclusive Innovation. Her previous experience includes establishing a Maker Space at the Bahir Dar Institute of Technology in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, and co-founding the First Steps Project, a UK-based non-for-profit that ran workshops and training programs for young people living in areas of deprivation.
Posts
The ESA Open Mapping Grants: Reviewed and Revised
In November 2020, the Open Mapping Hub - Eastern and Southern Africa received 20 applications from OSM Communities in 17 countries in the region...
Mentoring a Community Through a Microgrant Application
As part of the most recent call for Facebook Community Impact Microgrant applications, HOT tried a new mentorship approach to supporting OpenStreetMap (OSM) community members through the application process.
Asia and the Pacific Hub launches Facebook Community Impact Microgrants
Three communities in the Asia-Pacific have been selected as recipients of the Facebook Community Impact Microgrant. Congratulations to OSM Fiji, MapBeks in the Philippines, and the Geomatics Engineering Society at Kathmandu University!
Resilience Mappers from Uganda is our Summit 2020 Microgrant awardee!
Congratulations to Resilience Mappers for being selected as the recipient of the hOSM Summit 2020 microgrant!
Introducing the HOT Community Team
Over the past few months, HOT has assembled a six-person community team to support humanitarian OpenStreetMap community growth across 94 countries. Meet the members and welcome them to the HOT staff team.
Developing a Web Map Repository of Kampala’s Informal Settlements (by Resilience Mappers)
Resilience Mappers has built a web dashboard for geospatial data to support efforts by the Ugandan government to help residents of low-income communities who have been most affected by Covid-19 lockdowns.
Using OpenStreetMap Data to Support Emergency Ambulance Response Service and Mapping of COVID-19 Amenities in Northeast Nigeria (by Humanitarian Mappers)
Humanitarian Mappers of Nigeria is using collaborative mapping to track Covid and improve ambulance services in a region already facing insecurity and conflict.
Community Impact Program (by Yer Çizenler)
Yer Çizenler is adding Turkish language support to OpenStreetMap related tools, translating existing OpenStreetMap documents into Turkish and expanding the infrastructure of Yer Çizenler’s volunteer base while considering gender equality and community diversity.
Crowdmapping in the Midst of a Pandemic (by Map Kibera)
Map Kibera shares their experience crowdmapping during the Covid-19 pandemic to create public health data in Kenya.
Facebook Community Impact Microgrants: Up to $5K available to OSM communities in East Africa and Asia
Applications open! Up to $5000 is available for OpenStreetMap (OSM) community projects that directly support, contribute, or respond to local humanitarian/development challenges.
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Five OpenStreetMap Communities Receive Facebook Community Impact Microgrants
Five OSM communities, spread across the Philippines, Turkey, Uganda, Kenya, and Zambia, have received Facebook Community Impact Microgrants to support community engagement and training.
Supporting Coronavirus Response Through Mapping in Liberia (by iLab Liberia)
In May 2020, iLab Liberia was awarded a microgrant as part of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s (HOT) Rapid Response Microgrant: COVID-19 Program. Here’s iLab’s community blogpost detailing their project.
HOT’s Community Support Programs - Going Beyond Microgrants
HOT’s vision is to map an area home to one billion people living in poverty and at high risk of disasters by engaging mappers around the world to massively grow the number of local edits to the map. To kickstart planning, HOT’s Community Team has hosted a series of workshops to understand community perspectives.
Second Round of Rapid Response Micrograntees Announced!
Congratulations to the latest COVID-19 Rapid Response Micrograntees! Their work will make their communities more resilient and help people stay safe.
Applications Open for Facebook Community Impact Microgrants
HOT has opened the application period for Facebook Community Impact Microgrants, with a special focus on projects that engage women and girls in mapping. Apply today!
#map2020 Results Announced
After reviewing all of the inspiring submissions, the HOT and Mapillary teams have chosen SIGenBici as the #map2020 project of the year.
HOT Rapid Response Microgrants: COVID-19 – First round of Micrograntees announced
We’re excited to announce the first round of awardees for HOT Rapid Response Microgrants: COVID-19. Microgrants, which are provided to OpenStreetMap communities to support their local response to the pandemic, have been awarded to projects in Liberia, Uganda, Kenya and Mongolia. Over the next 6 months, these Microgrants will support the following work:
Rapid Response Microgrants: COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting communities across the globe in many shapes and forms.
