Volunteer Opportunities (See all vacancies)
Volunteer mappers
Timeframe: Ongoing during COVID-19 response
Location: Remote
Projected start date: Ongoing
Volunteers, we need your help! COVID-19 is now a serious global pandemic disrupting daily life as we all know it. To make matters worse, 1 billion people are living in places that are partially or completely unmapped. This means they may be left out of life-saving measures, access to healthcare and other forms of support. Health workers and humanitarian responders need reliable maps in order to carry out testing, treatment and contact tracing. Volunteer and help put vulnerable communities on the map.
What do we need?
Given the rapid spread of the crisis, it is crucial to get OpenStreetMap data into the hands of government agencies/health authorities and other actors requesting it for the response. Maps are required in order to identify where vulnerable populations are and provide this information to government teams, and to provide them a way to track and visualize their progress. Missing data on health infrastructure such as facilities, testing sites, pharmacies, laboratories, etc. is needed, as well as roads, ports and resource distribution centers, such as markets and food centers, to understand how resources are allocated.
This is where HOT volunteers come in. You can help update these maps and get crucial data into the hands of frontline responders and decision makers. Find out what you can do to help below.
How can you help?
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**Host a mapathon: **Organize some friends or colleagues to host a mapathon to support people affected by COVID-19. Find all the information on how to set up your mapathon here.
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Map: You can learn to map very easily online and start contributing on the HOT Tasking Manager.
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Validate: If you’re an experienced mapper, help us verify data quality by validating!
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Spread the word: Follow us on Twitter and Facebook and share our messages to encourage more mappers!
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**Ask us questions: **We’re available to support you with any questions on these activities, please join us on the HOT Slack Channel and head to #mapper-support for assistance.
Here are some of the mapping attributes that are increasingly important in the current environment:
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Hospitals/clinics including facilities and surrounds: This includes the opening hours, addresses, services provided, building outlines, and helipads for countries where air ambulances are commonly used.
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Pharmacies: Opening hours, locations and addresses.
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Supermarkets, marketplaces, and convenience stores: Opening hours, locations and addresses.
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Banks, ATMs, electronic money transfers: Particularly important with global economic disruption.
We highly encourage mapping some of the above features in an area you care about. There are also some existing tasks that you can help complete.
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Hospitals in the Philippines with MapRoulette
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Global health sites mapping with Healthsites
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Health care clinic information globally with MapContrib
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Hospital outlines and surrounds in Qom, Iran with MapRoulette
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Hospital outlines and surrounds in Tehran province, Iran with MapRoulette
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Importing pharmacies in Catalonia, Spain with OSM Tasking Manager
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Enriching hospital data in Istanbul with MapRoulette
Virtual Mapathons to look for
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Philippines: Local OpenStreetMap groups and OsGeo in the Philippines are coordinating a mapathon scheduled for Wednesday, March 25th, so stay tuned and join the conversation on #mapatime & #mapagaling. You should also check out their new Twitter account.
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Melbourne: See Maptime Melbourne’s event page and follow them on Twitter for an upcoming April mapathon.
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USA: Follow OpenStreetMapUS for an upcoming live mapathon on April 1st.
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Missing Maps April Mapathon: 7 April 19:00 – 22:00 BST
A big thank you to the mapping community! From everyone at HOT, we wish the best possible outcome for anyone affected by COVID-19.