State of the Map Africa – Transcription

Okay. Next speaker, I would like to introduce Geoffrey Kateregga coming to talk about the first State of the Map Africa. Good morning, everyone. My name is Geoffrey Kateregga from Africa, Uganda and working with the team, currently working on a project in Uganda. We are doing mapping for the refugee response. Uganda is receiving a lot of refugees. Almost 2 million from the surrounding countries. So we’re doing what we can to help the organizations that are responding to the refugees and using OpenStreetMap and giving them information that is useful it them. So I’m here to tell you the story of the State of the Map Africa which happened last year  sorry, this year, in July. And I’ll start with a celebration that we made. In June of this year  we joined OSM communities around the world to celebrate OpenStreetMap. Why were we celebrating? Was there anything for us to celebrate? So that’s always been said that Africa is the oil of the 21st century and there is a huge opportunity for Africa. Because some of the  that is freely available here is not that welcome from  I had a friend that picked me up from the airport to Boulder. And she was just using a map in the car to navigate and to reach the hotel. And for me, those are things that are not easily available. Because maps are not everywhere. It’s data that is missing. So there is a huge opportunity for OpenStreetMap because it will be the only solution available in some places. So when you see a very blank map on Google Maps, for example, and you go to OpenStreetMap you’ll find data. So OpenStreetMap in Africa has been growing, and I just want to go through some of the ways it has grown. The biggest I can say through humanitarian mapping. So the map that you see is some of the projects for the missing maps. And you can see that the largest footprint is in Africa. So Africa has benefited a lot from humanitarian mapping. Mapping in West Africa that is due to the response. So there was a lot of mapping that was done there. And then civilian products also happening in different parts of Africa. So these kind of projects also get to grow our local OSM communities. So OpenStreetMap communities in Africa organize mapathons, mapping parties and trainings. This is the same way it’s done in different parts of the world. So those organized mapping parties, they get to map, but also enjoy. So the other way that OpenStreetMap is growing in Africa is through universities. There is now what we call “Youth mappers,” which is, you know, a university student mapping chapters. So there are several of them in Africa just this year, but it’s growing very, very fast. And I’m sure there are several at State of the Map U.S. So it’s growing very fast. There are also programs that offer internship programs to students which involve the use of OpenStreetMap. One example is the project in Tanzania which engages around 200 students doing their internship using OpenStreetMap. So they’re mapping the whole city on OpenStreetMap. So the students benefit as part of their studies, but also the map grows in that way. The other way is also through government. So you find, in many cases, government doesn’t have enough data. And then someone comes and proposes using OpenStreetMap to cover the gap. So in that case, OpenStreetMap grows as well. But also the other opportunity is you find official government data which they’re free to give out. So the local OSM communities get this data from the government and then import it in OpenStreetMap. A very good example  like, for example, official boundaries. So you cannot just go and map this kind of data because it will be questioned. And the best way is to get it from government. Also, in some cases you find instances where even in government data is missing. For example, you find a road which doesn’t have an official name and have to base it on the community themselves and ask them the name of the road and then you add it to the map. So we are also working with governments and using open source tools to promote open data. So because of this huge potential, we realized that the different OSM communities in Africa, there are about 54 countries in Africa. But the success levels and the challenges each community faces are different. So you find some countries where the OSM community is, you know, doing very well. But in other countries you find it’s at zero. So we thought it would be very important for us to come together, work together, join hands, share resources, you know? And grow OpenStreetMap as a group. So we are getting together. We have grown our network, but we would like really to spread out and reach out all over Africa. So the places which you see in the orange color are the countries that are already on board. And we are working to get them to come and grow this network. And we have done a few things. One of them is organizing State of the Map Africa 2017 and I’ll show you how we did that. I was elected to be in New York in 2015. I attended my first State of the Map conference. My first OpenStreetMap conference. For me that was, like, a very big eyeopener. I got to meet lots of people. One of the things that makes the OpenStreetMap community very interesting is the sense of community. So when you come here and meet all of these wonderful people who are doing the same thing that you do hundreds of miles away from me, that’s very encouraging. So at State of the Map U.S. I got to learn more about the potential of OpenStreetMap. And as I was sitting in the sessions listening to people talk, my mind was always ringing back home and saying, we can also do this. We can also do that. And one of the things was you’d also have a State of the Map Africa. And, you know, sit together and share our stories and learn from each other. So when I went back it was key to look out for people who have had the same kind of, you know, thought that we need the State of the Map Africa. And there were there. It was just a matter of getting in touch, you know? Go through the information of how to organize a State of the Map Africa. So two years later, after going to State of the Map U.S., from 810 of July 2017, I had State of the Map Africa. And it was hosted in Kampala, Uganda. I’m glad to say it was a successful conference. We had representation from several countries in Africa. And I’m glad to see some faces that were at State of the Map Africa. So if you were at State of the Map Africa, thank you. Here, putting on the Tshirt that we had at State of the Map Africa. It has an African design. Look out for him. So why was it important for us to have State of the Map Africa? One, we wanted to, you know? Creating this continental cooperation on OpenStreetMap. There are things we can do better when we join together. But I wanted to establish OpenStreetMap Africa. So when we started having these meetings it was just about organizing State of the Map Africa. But realized that we can do much more than just organizing the conference. We can do projects. It was also to show the possibilities of OpenStreetMap to organizations, to government and businesses. Like I said, it is the 21st century. And when you show the possibilities to people of what it can do, then the opportunities that are created in that case. So how did we manage to organize State of the Map Africa? We formed working groups. So we had the venue selection committee whose work was, of course, to first of all identify where the conference would take place. And they gave it to Kampala after going through several applications. We had the fundraising committee, because there’s no way the conference could happen without resources, without money. Had programs committee whose work was to put together an interesting program that would also make, you know, come for the conference, pay and be there. We had the communications committee whose work was, you know, to reach out to people and also market the entitle. Had the scholarships committee which was tasked to bring in people. And they had a very hard job, because when we gave them this task, we had a budget of zero. They had to find money and bring in people. Then we had the local organizing committee. Of course, which was the hosting country which was Uganda. So we were tasked to look for a venue, make sure everything was in order. So we had weekly meetings using Mambo. Because there are more than like 20, so you’re not going to use a platform which is  you also have to think about Internet. Because some people have, like, very poor connections. So if you use, for example, Skype or Google Hangouts, it’s not going to work well. But we talked to the Open Map Foundation who gave us very, very good advice. We talked to OpenStreetMap U.S. Yeah. We are blessed to have them visiting Uganda to give us useful information. We talked a lot  so these organizations have organized events before. And they gave us very valuable advice on how to go about this. Yes, we had the will to do it, but we didn’t have it all. So we had to gather as much information as possible about how to do this. So we are blessed to be getting very good sponsorship. We had about 48 people come into Kampala on scholarship. So that’s a list of people who sponsored us for the event. This made us a truly African conference. If we had representation from just like four countries in Africa, we would not be able to call it Open  State of the Map Africa. We had 149 participants. 83% from Africa and about 16% from the rest of the world. Yeah. 71% male and 28% female. At the next State of the Map Africa I want to see more female participation. And I just wanted to quickly go through some of the highlights. Because, like I mentioned, one of them was the mappers that had a huge presence at the State of the Map Africa because of the university chapters that have been planted in the French universities in Africa. So they are growing OpenStreetMap through the youth. And they had a State of the Map Africa. The second one is crowd to map. So crowd to map is a project in Tanzania. And they’re using mapping to help young girls escape cutting. This is a huge problem in some cities in Africa. So some young girls were rescued from being cut. And you see the importance of maps here. Because program to rescue them, sometimes they don’t know where they are. But because of the mapping that has been done. Someone is able to use the map and find the house of this girl. So they mapped it to a school where these girls are rescued and, you know, kept in a safe place. And you can always check out and help them map. They always have tasks. The tasking manager and they need mapping. Another good example for what is happening in OpenStreetMap in Africa this year. This is in Tanzania. It’s a project that’s funded by the World bank. They’re using OpenStreetMap to solve the problem of flooding in the city. So this is very huge as an opportunity for OpenStreetMap in Africa because you have organizations like USID interested in data. And, you know, when you proposed a project using OpenStreetMap and they’re interested in planning it. This is in Accra, Ghana. So the local OpenStreetMap community there is mapping bus routes on OpenStreetMap. So information that was not easily available is now getting more available because of OpenStreetMap. Other big news that is happening is also in mapping from illumination. So this was the health access initiative and the humanitarian OpenStreetMap team. And over 500 square kilometers have been mapped in Africa and also Central America and Asia. So this is also improving OpenStreetMap coverage in Africa. So the data that is collected in the mapping helps people who go to spray for malaria know where to find sediments and make the work easy. Because, you know, malaria is a huge problem in Africa. In Uganda we are doing a project, like I mentioned, crowd sourcing. And we have refugee data. So we are supporting people who are, like, organizations like the UNHR who are responding to the refugees from South Sudan, from Congo and we are giving them  we are making maps for them. We are making data available for them to use. Another good example you want to point out from State of the Map Africa was the HDX. so data from OpenStreetMap is accessible because of this platform. So exports made from OpenStreetMap to HDX. So someone can easily, you know, get data. OpenStreetMap data in a very easy way using the HDX platform. And in Southern Africa, there’s a very good use case of how government is using OpenStreetMap. They’re using OpenStreetMap for land management and effective fiscal planning. The lady you see in blue is a minister in Usutu and she’s trying out OpenStreetMap. And the whole country has been mapped on OpenStreetMap. It’s like very  very detailed. And the story from State of the Map Africa is here. To encourage women into mapping. So they’re getting together under the name OpenStreetMap Girls. It’s about women empowerment, women in technology, let girls map. So if you have  if you know any project that support women empowerment, you can link them to them. Also, we are doing a lot of mapping in Africa. So where you see, you know, this is about crowd sourced  we have photos for everyone. Street mapping. Places like you can’t reach. Then just have to get your camera and, you know, shoot these pictures and then upload them to map. Like for me in my village where I grew up from, there’s no  the imager is not there. When you go to mapper, then you can find it there. We had soccer at State of the Map Africa. You know, so it was not very good for the hosts. Thanks to people like Maggie here who punished us very badly. But it was fun. And some of the events happening this year. One of them is a State of the Map Cameroon, which is happening on the 1st of December. And State of the Map Tanzania. That’s 810th. And the good news is global is coming to Africa next year. It will be happening very soon. Yeah. So you can make plans for this. What’s next? We are getting more organized into working groups. Want to get more involved in the OSM Foundation. If you’re here and not yet a member of the OSM Foundation, do so. I want you to be part of the agenda, besides the future of OpenStreetMap. And this way is to become part of the OSM Foundation. Once that  we are preparing for the next State of the Map because we realized if we don’t start early, things cannot go. And the other thing is to collaborate on projects. So join us to map each and every corner of Africa. Thank you. [ Applause ] Is that working? We have time for maybe two questions if anybody has any? Thank you. I know that youth mappers and everybody that contributes or anything like that always has good intentions. But what procedures, if there are any, to take to ensure that the data being added is, you know, quality? Yeah. Thank you. Of course, we have to fight to get quality of data, but also quality is very important. But I know youth mappers, they have a program called find your mapping powers. So they’re encouraging students from just becoming contributors also to go a step ahead and, you know, do data validation. Also, it’s one of the discussions we had at State of the Map Africa. Each community should have a team that, you know, looks at data quality for the country. Like validations. So something that we are working on. Any other questions? AUDIENCE: So when you go to streets that don’t have a name and you ask the people for the name because the government data doesn’t have that, is the government using the name that people give to those roads to blush that? Is the government taking OSM as their own data as well? Thank you. So the thing is, in Africa we don’t have like, you know, official addresses. So we find local people already have a name. So there is no official map. We are trying to create a map. Everything you do is go to government and say, is there an official name for this place? If there isn’t? Then they have to ask their local people. They give these  and even the government doesn’t have the actual name of the street. Thank you very much. Thank you. [ Applause ]