News
OpenStreetMap Bangladesh Edition
Written with Andrew SalzbergThe recent horrific factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh drew renewed attention to the link between global garment industry brands and the working conditions of garment factory employees at the far end of the supply chain.
Using motorcycles to survey in Haiti
As part of the CAP103 project, financed by USAID, being run in the North of Haiti right now we have started coordinating motorcycles for survey purposes. The purpose of using the motos is two-fold. First, to be able to transport teams of OSM surveyors to remote locations it would otherwise be difficult to reach. Second, to be able to collect a solid network of GPS traces for the area's major and minor ways. Once collected, they can be used as a resource for setting offsets and positions for any aerial imageries.
European Commission Joint Research Center and OpenStreetMap
Late March, just coming back from Burundi, I have been invited by Guido Lemoine from the Institute for the Protection and Security of the...
Crossing Boundaries by Tracing Buildings: Mapping Kathmandu from New York City"
Throughout the day you could hear the simple question - 'Is that a building?' -- followed by conversations about shadows, and people, and the construction of a city that seemed so far away from our own.
Comprehensive Report on Mali Activation
Early this year, HOT was activated in Mali. Pierre Beland took the lead on this activation, and produced for OCHA this excellent report. Recommended...
State Department Launches Imagery to the Crowd
The State Department Humanitarian Information Unit has launched Imagery to the Crowd![inline:Screen-Shot-2013-04-24-at-2.24.34-PM.png]This is important formal recognition of the partnership we've built over the past couple years. The premise is simple enough. HOT needs current aerial imagery to create up to date maps following a disaster event. The US government acquires that kind of imagery from commercial providers. Sharing the imagery with the OSM community means better maps for responders.
Hottie Humberto Yances presents the La Boquilla Project
Humberto Yances has written up his wonderful OSM community work in La Boquilla, and HOT wants to share great work by HOT members (note, this is not a formal HOT project). From an idea, to engagement, to mapping, to distribution, to use, La Boquilla clearly demonstrates what can happen with an open, networked, community based approach. [inline:equipo.jpg]From these evocative beginnings ...
Starting a HOT Activation in Central African Republic
Bangui, la capitale de la République Centrafricaine, a été prise le 24 mars par les rebelles de la Séléka, trois mois après leur arrivée depuis les contrées septentrionales du pays. Dans la mesure où la situation dans la capitale est devenue assez tragique, comme elle l’était déjà depuis quelques temps pour de nombreuses autres villes et villages, il est temps maintenant de démarrer une Activation HOT officielle afin de répondre à cette crise. Dans les lignes qui suivent, je fais un rapide aperçu d’OSM dans le pays et des besoins à combler.
Starting OSM in Cap-Haitien (Haiti)
Ten days that I am back in Haiti to start a new HOT project with USAID in the northern departments of the island with a mixed crew of hotties and Haitian mappers. Over the next three months, we will train 60 Youths from the communities and map with them as much of this region and eventually build there a strong OSM local group rooted in the University of Limonade.
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.