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News — 11 March, 2022

hot_tech_talk | Mar ‘22

_Happy end of Feb all! (yes, I realise it's already mid March)_\ \ After 2 long grounded years, hot_tech is starting to take off again - both figuratively and literally. Our team is now turning our attention and efforts toward working alongside hubs, contributors, collectives and users to test and evolve existing and potential humanitarian OSM tools increase access, usage and contribution to OSM.

Tldr;

  • hot_tech are leaving the comfort of our home offices and engaging with hubs, contributors and users around existing and future humanitarian OSM tech.

  • We are building some experimental workflows for conflating AI generated data with OSM data, which we plan to share for all to see and scrutinise around May.

  • OpenAerialMap design research is underway in partnership with Kontour (of Disaster Ninja fame) - Look out for opportunities to get involved.

  • The Harvard Tech for Social Good team continues their work as they connect with users and community members interested in Galaxy.

This month…

Rob and Omran are neck deep in the details of exploring new and evidence-based ways of conflating AI generated datasets with OSM data. With the support of OSM seed, we will be establishing an AI sandbox that will allow us to test three potential conflation workflows. The data generated by the Microsoft Maps team, covers Nigeria and Kenya and will be the test data set for these new experiment workflows. Once the software is complete, we plan to run, test and openly share the data and results for all to see and scrutinise.

Cristiano and DK were hard at work last month, kicking off the OAM redux project. In collaboration with Kontour, they will be leading a design process to create the future of open aerial imagery. If OAM is a project you like, use or are interested in, please contact us because we want to gather as much input as possible.

Ramya guided the Harvard UX designers this year as they further explored the edges of Galaxy. This group of young and budding designers have been meeting with a number of community members to understand how we can create a user experience that is both accessible and engaging for all that want to explore the galaxy as well. We will be sharing the results of the exploration, so keep tuned to this station if you want to see the outputs.

I’m already looking forward to all the wonderful updates in the works for march.

Kindness,

Bo Tech/ >dir

# Announcements:

  • We have kicked off a redesign for OpenAerialMap (OAM). We will be working closely with users and communities who use and depend on OAM to discover needs, wants and wishes to be included in the next version of OAM. If you’d like to be involved, please reach out to Cristiano or DK.

  • Omran Najjar played a starring role on a webinar hosted by Omdena, where he talked though HOT’s evolving AI-assisted workflows. You can rewatch the event here >

  • We will be welcoming a new senior engineer to the team in March. They are a passionate, experienced and dedicated OSM contributor and we are really looking forward to officially welcoming them next week!

  • We are contributing to the improvement of OSMSeed in collaboration with Development seed. We will share more on this soon, but the short version is, together we hope to improve the flexibility, accessibility and usability of OSMSeed for other users in the ecosystem.

# Project updates:

Galaxy

  • UX research work w/ Harvard Tech for Social Good - user interviews conducted to understand the data points.

  • Improving the user experience on Galaxy website

  • Enable OSM raw data downloads through Galaxy

  • Next Galaxy working group meetings will be: Tue Mar 15, 1600UTC / Wed Mar 16, 0900UT

Tasking Manager

  • KLL are already merging new feature updates for a new release coming soon, including RapID integration, implementing OAuth 2.0 for login, and other important bug fixes and updates.

  • Our new Collective Facilitator Petya is reinforcing the ways contributors can get involved in the Tasking Manager Collective with improvements to the issues queue and new documentation.

  • We are having a Tasking Manager Meetup on 6 April in multiple time zones for anyone who wishes to join. Details to follow.

OAM

  • We kicked off the contract with Kontur on the OAM Design Project

  • We are doing user interviews with OAM stakeholders

  • Kontur has created a Miro board for mapping stakeholder personas. SOon to be publically viewable.