News
LearnOSM Origin and Relaunch
Today we are excited to announce the relaunch of LearnOSM in conjunction with the MapBox team.LearnOSM was originally envisioned by Jeff Haack, it came out of necessity from HOT's work in Indonesia. There are many training materials for OpenStreetMap, but few that have been designed in a clear way for beginners. Often instructions are buried in a wiki or assume someone already has some indepth technical knowledge.
La communauté Dakaroise est rejoint par de nouveaux mappers
Voilà déjà un mois que j’avais quitté Dakar. Sur place, le projet OSM_SN initié par HOT en mai 2012 avait déjà touché de nombreuses...
Tax-Exempt in the United States at Last!
Background
HOT has been incorporated as a non-profit in Washington D.C. since August, 2010. The paperwork was originally done with a simple need in mind, that we wanted to continue to assist with the collection of data and use of OpenStreetMap in Haiti. Since this initial incorporation we have expanded our field work to include 8 countries in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. We have also responded remotely to many kinds of disasters around the world. This week we reached another administrative milestone as a young non-profit incorporated in the United States.Senegal : mapping in Saint-Louis is going well and OSM_SN project getting stronger
Après la semaine de formation réalisée au sein de l’Université de Ziguinchor, sujet du dernier blogpost, retour le 28 janvier à Saint-Louis avec Bassirou...
Burundi: maybe a small country, but great opportunities for open data with Eurosha
One Eurosha country we did not talk about so far here (sorry for this) is Burundi, this small but crowded country between DRC, Rwanda and Tanzania. There, Adelina, Alexandra, Anna, Désiré, Gloria, Iolanda and Marion are hosted in Bujumbura, the Capital city, and are lucky to live and work in a big, quite comfortable house called “Le Château” (“the Castle” in French, what is though a bit exaggerated: not so cosy, and more pasta for dinner than game birds...), without actually being hosted by lazy chatelaines, but fierce defenders of the open source and open data causes.[inline:DSC_0231 800x600.jpg]In the country, there was no local mappers, but already some areas traced remotely by foreigners, essentially over Bujumbura, sometimes from old Yahoo imagery.
How to engage with non-spatial partners, feedback from the field in Kenya
When presenting OpenStreetMap to stakeholders who are already engaged in some kind of GIS and mapping activities, the biggest challenge to overcome is usually...
Eurosha in Kenya: making-up and perspectives for the second Hot support
In Kenya, 6 Eurosha volunteers have been deployed since Early October. Caroline, and Hannington from Kenya and Janja, Barbara Lenka, Marine from Europe are all are hosted in Molo by People in Peril Association, a Eurosha partner that works with a Kenyan NGO called NECOFA (Network for Ecofarming in Africa) they fund with the support of Slovak Aid. Necofa acts on various areas in Central Kenya, especially along the Molo River. Necofa’s office in Molo is where the Eurosha volunteers normally works where they do not travel for their outreaching or collecting activities, using then a “matatu", a local minibus, used the rest of time for safaris.
Naissance d'une communauté OSM à Kinshasa
Durant les derniers mois, de nombreux contributeurs à travers le monde ont participé à la cartographie de la RDC suite à l'activation de HOT dans l'est du pays. Grâce à leur support et au Tasking Manager de HOT, des villes et infrastructures importantes dans des régions en crise ont pu être numérisées sur base de l'imagerie Bing malgré le nombre extrêmement réduit de contributeurs actifs à l'intérieur de la RDC.
Faces of HOT: Emir Hartato, one of HOT´s Indonesian team leaders
Emir Hartato,22, has been working on the HOT Indonesian team since June 2011. During his senior year at the University of Indonesia, Emir (along with Vasanthi) joined HOT as an intern. Kate Chapman, Jeff Haack, Vasanthi Harygono and Emir were the initial four to teach OSM under HOT. He has traveled extensively throughout Indonesia teaching OpenStreetMap to government workers, NGOs and other humanitarian organizations. [inline:emr.jpg]Emir lives in the rainy city of Bogor (outside Jakarta) and enjoys taking elaborate photos. Here is what he has to say about his work with HOT so far:How did you get involved with HOT/OSM?
Mapping for Preparedness in Nepal
Today I bring you a guest post about a great project in Nepal. It comes courtesy of Nama Budhathoki, who is working to help ensure there is better data for disaster planning using OSM in Nepal.Nepal is a beautiful country with eight out of ten highest mountains in the world including Mt Everest. Its capital city has eight UNESCO-listed heritage sites. Nepal is a popular destination for tourists. Recently, several reports have warned that this spectacular nation is at high risks from earthquakes. According to Nepal Risk Reduction Consortium Secretariat, a mega-earthquake—which could occur at any time—is estimated to kill more than 100,000 in the Kathmandu Valley alone, injuring another 300,000 and displacing up to 1 million.
Syria Activation Update: Our progress so far
After a week and a half of work on the current Syria activation, we have made pleasing progress and have seen some fantastic results. Volunteers have begun mapping highlighted areas from the available Bing aerial imagery, the first three of which have been completed:
A massive thanks to everyone who contributed to these. Also please be aware that we're grateful to anyone that traces areas of Syria not covered by a task. Having said that, I've just added the next three jobs to the Tasking Manager:Activation pour le Mali
Cette activation fait suite aux discussions entre HOT et le Bureau des Nations Unies pour la coordination des affaires humanitaires pour le Mali (UNOCHA-Mali). Les efforts en cours au Mali sont très utiles pour les organisations humanitaires. Pour soutenir le système des clusters et la communauté humanitaire, on nous demande de poursuivre la cartographie de base en cours et de contribuer à la géolocalisation des données existantes pour les services de base.Le 16 janvier 2013, UNOCHA-Mali et ses partenaires humanitaires ont souligné la situation d'urgence complexe au Mali.
- 228.920 de personnes sont déplacées à l'intérieur du Mali.
Mali Activation
This Activation follows discussions between HOT and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Mali (UNOCHA-Mali). The ungoing efforts to map Mali are very helpfull to humanitarian organizations. To support the Clusters coordination system and the humanitarian community, we are asked to continue the ungoing base mapping and to contribute to the geolocation of existing datasets for basic services. On Jan 16 2013, the UNOCHA-Mali and his humanitarian partners have highlighted the complex emergency situation in Mali.
- An estimated 228,920 people are displaced inside Mali.
- There are an estimated 144,446 Malian refugees in neighbouring countries.
OpenIR meets with the Indonesian Team
On Monday, the HOT Indonesian team met with Juhee and Arlene from OpenIR. This group of MIT affiliates have started a pilot study in...
A return to Chad three months after the set up of the EUROSHA mapping team
I just landed in Ndjamena (Chad) for HOT. I am joining again the team of mappers of the EUROSHA Chad project that I helped setting up their activities in N’Djamena and Goré last fall (October/ November – see blog post) in close coordination with ACRA and France Volontaires, HOT’s partners on this project. This is an interesting time for the EUROSHA project
