2016-SOTMUS.md

OpenStreetMap conference inspires hundreds to grow the open data mapping community and help save lives worldwide

SEATTLE — Seattle University’s campus looked like a tech nerd summer camp over the past three days as it hosted 400+ people attending the seventh annual national OpenStreetMap conference.

But these mostly young and impassioned people weren’t looking for Pokemon. They were looking for new and emerging ways to help increasing numbers of people, healthcare providers and emergency responders locally, nationally and internationally.

Often called the “Wikipedia of maps,” OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free and open-source map of the world being created by more than a million volunteers around the globe. This year’s conference highlighted unique applications of OSM data and methods by a wide range of organizations, governments, educators and individuals across the globe.

“OpenStreetMaps and Wikimedia represent the power of open communities to fundamentally change the way we understand the world,” said conference opening keynote speaker Katherine Maher, executive director of Wikipedia’s parent company, the Wikimedia Foundation. “Our free data and knowledge is used by hundreds of millions of people every day — everywhere — and we will continue to experiment with the impossible as we tinker, grow, and build incredible things together.”

Presentations covered dozens of wide-ranging topics — from the emerging role of OSM in international disaster response to its growing routing capabilities for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians — and included talks by representatives from Facebook, Microsoft and Tableau, and from Greeninfo Network, Telenav and the Tacoma Fire Department.

An entirely volunteer community, OSM is working in collaboration with Red Cross and other humanitarian NGOs, Wikipedia, GIS professionals, urban planners and technology developers worldwide to address the unique needs of specific populations. Its numbers are growing as more and more people get excited about helping people and communities in their home town or in nations 15,000 miles away, from the comfort of their favorite sofa or in the company of fellow OSM mavens at local mapathons and meetups.

“OpenStreetMap is the definitive map used during any disaster,” said the second conference keynote speaker, Dale Kunce, international GIS lead for the American Red Cross and the founder of Missing Maps¹. Kunce is also deeply involved in Humanitarian OpenStreetMap (HOT).² “For typhoon Haiyan (Philippines, 2013) we had 1,500 OSM volunteers,” Kunce said. “For the Ebola response (West Africa, 2014) we had 1,800 volunteers. And for the Nepal earthquake response (2015), we had 8,000 volunteers, 2,000 in the first 48 hours! We’re almost at 12,000 unique mappers for Missing Maps. We’ve had 275 mapathons in 33 countries… and put 20 million people on the map. In the next five years, we want to put 200 million people on the map (mostly in China, India and Southeast Asia). And I think that number is low. I think we in the OSM community can do that in a much, much bigger way.”

Attendees clearly gleaned voluminous ideas and inspiration over the three-days. Just three testimonials:

• Anat Caspi, director of the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology at the University of Washington, engages communities in improving access in urban centers. “The OSM community is really vibrant and thriving,” she said. “These people are developing tools and enabling greater engagement and understanding in the social endeavor. We have to be equitable and remember that different populations require different accommodations.” She and OSM Seattle are doing a mapathon in August to map the University of Washington campus for accessibility, and to help determine where improvements can be made.

• Steven Johnson of Washington D.C. is a self-employed geographer and educator who has organized for OSM since 2009, and gets high school and technical college students involved in OSM. He said he has made it to all seven OSM conferences “because the half-life of some of this stuff is about six months. If you’re not paying attention, the ground shifts very quickly beneath your feet.” This year, it was mostly the conference sessions about mobile technologies and drones making mapping in isolated regions increasingly easy that captured his imagination. His main message to young people? “OSM is a do-ocracy. It is your map. You can map things that matter to you. OSM makes maps accessible to many people and allows them to use the data in any way that they want. It’s powerful and liberating, to map without the need to rely on expensive commercial and government mapmakers.”

• Riley Love is a GIS and remote-sensing developer in Seattle who has used nothing but proprietary software and data for more than 30 years. This was his first OSM conference, and he’s already hooked. “The idea of using OSM and giving back to the community is better than working with an expensive vendor who requires six months to make a fix,” he said. “It’s a no- brainer that people will connect to open data and eliminate the cost of propriety data. I was especially impressed to hear that there are patterns to find mistakes or vandalism and correct them, as that’s what everyone worries about with socially-collected information, whether it’s Wikipedia or OSM… I loved the humanitarian focus — it speaks volumes to me. We’re not talking about delivering packages — we’re talking about saving lives… Plus OSM can really play a role in monitoring changes to the earth. I am absolutely amazed by all these projects.”

#####For more information about OpenStreetMap, Missing Maps, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap,and local-national- international story and interview ideas, please contact us.

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1. Missing Maps: Each year, disasters around the world kill nearly 100,000 and affect or displace 200 million people. Many of the places where these disasters occur are literally “'missing” from any map and first responders lack the information to make valuable decisions regarding relief efforts. Missing Maps is an open and collaborative project in which anyone can help to map areas where humanitarian organizations are trying to meet the needs of vulnerable people.

2. HOT: When major disaster strikes anywhere in the world, HOT rallies a huge network of volunteers from across the globe to create, online, the maps that enable responders to reach those in need.