OpenStreetMap
Although I read the newspaper (almost) every day, lately I’ve been getting news faster through my social circle. It usually starts as a rumor from an online friend, popping up on my timeline :
“There’s a new bus route coming to town!”
“Look at this photo I took— they’re testing the route!”
“I tried the trial run. Here’s a draft of the route I recorded myself.”
That’s what I’d been hearing for the past few weeks.
And then, finally, that rumors showed up in the daily newspaper I read.
I am honored and humbled to introduce myself as one of the nominees for the 2025 Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) Voting Membership.
My name is Adamu Muhammad Adamu, a geographer, mapping advocate, and dedicated leader from Gombe State, Nigeria. I currently serve as the President of the National Association of Geography Students (NAGS) at Gombe State University, where I also lead our active YouthMappers chapter—a platform that has significantly shaped my journey into open mapping, humanitarian work, and global collaboration.
HOT represents more than an organization—it is a movement that embodies inclusion, empowerment, and action.
To me, HOT stands at the intersection of technology and humanity, where data becomes a tool to respond to crises, build resilience, and bring visibility to marginalized communities. It is through HOT that young people like myself have found a purpose in contributing to real-world solutions, bridging the gap between global challenges and local realities.
My engagement with HOT began in 2020 through YouthMappers. What started as curiosity evolved into a passion and a responsibility to serve. I joined mapping campaigns, led training sessions, and participated in field data collection. In time, I became a mentor and mobilizer, encouraging others to see maps not just as tools, but as voices for the voiceless.
In 2024, I was proudly selected as a Leadership Fellow to represent my country in Bangkok, Thailand, and now selected as a Volunteer Regional Ambassador for YouthMappers in Nigeria, a role through which I support chapters across the country, encourage inter-campus collaboration, and promote open mapping as a vehicle for humanitarian and sustainable development.
Hello OpenStreetMap and HOT Community,
I’m Brazil Singh, from Bangladesh, and I’m honored to be nominated as a 2025 Voting Member of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT). I want to take this opportunity to share my story, what HOT means to me, and how I hope to contribute as a voting member.
I currently serve as an Open Mapping Guru at the Asia Pacific Hub and as a Regional Ambassador of YouthMappers. Through these roles, I’ve been able to support my community and contribute to open mapping efforts across the region. I’m also actively involved with the OpenStreetMap Foundation’s Communications Working Group, where I help strengthen global community engagement and communications.
I will stop editing here after more than year of contribution because of various reasons, mainly political reasons.
I feel like continuing to support the project which is politically involved in mapping scope is not my moral thing to do anymore.
OSM’s ridiculous policy about who controls the ground, those determine the border is far more ridiculous than occupation itself. I am not surprised that these people do not understand what is international recognition means. The policy of “who controls the ground” is simply supporting any “invasion / annexation / or whatever term here” and running away from the reality of internationally recognized borders. If OSM is run by Europeans or Americans or Russians (who support their invasions and military presence in Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia) I am not remotely shocked. Because if they understood, world would not have been this trash since WW2.
I have seen it first time when I was removing fake Armenian names from the Karabakh area (was under occupation in between 1992 and 2024), DWG contacted me about not removing them because they have talked to Armenians who felt nostalgically bad about those. I was in utter shock for an American in DWG who did not think about occupation a second, but being fully biased on occupiers side asking how they would feel.
The same goes to Russo-Ukrainian war, for some reason they show Donbas as Ukraine area while it is under occupation, but showing Crimea not as a part of Ukraine while it is under annexation and occupation.
Same situation is with Georgian occupied areas.
I am familiar with double standards of Europeans, so no surprise here at all. You guys can enjoy mapping with disputed areas and changing borders every day.
Good luck to you all!
I’m a skilled cartographer and GIS professional with expertise in mapping, spatial analysis, and information visualization using various software, including ArcGIS, QGIS, AutoCAD, ACAD, and OpenStreetMap. I create informative maps, conduct network analysis, and perform connectivity studies to drive insights and inform decision-making, leveraging my skills in GIS mapping, spatial analysis, and cartography to deliver high-quality solutions and contribute to projects that require spatial analysis, mapping, and data visualization.
Cartographers in Uganda’s National Water and Sewerage Corporation would play a vital role in water resource management by creating maps of water infrastructure, such as pipes and treatment plants, and mapping water sources like rivers and lakes. They would also identify areas prone to flooding, monitor water quality, and inform infrastructure planning using geospatial data. By providing accurate spatial data, cartographers would enhance planning, efficiency, and decision-making, working closely with engineers, hydrologists, and environmental scientists to ensure effective water resource management and infrastructure development.
May 16, 2025 (22.46 PM) : “Before starting validation on Project 18915, would you mind assisting with validation on another project first? It would be helpful for practice on a few tasks/grids beforehand.”
Since this is my very first validation project, I thought it would be best to train myself beforehand.
To start, I needed to choose a project to validate. I preferred a recent and active one, so I decided on Project #20468, which was created in response to the recent earthquake in Myanmar. The objective of this mapping project is to identify clusters of residential areas to support better disaster mitigation efforts in the future. Individual buildings do not need to be mapped—only clusters of houses (more than five) using landuse=residential.
The first issue I encountered after clicking the “Validate” button was that JOSM needed to be open with “Remote Control” enabled.
So, I opened JOSM, navigated to Edit → Preferences → Remote Control, and enabled the option. Once that was done, the task loaded successfully from my browser into JOSM. That was a pleasant surprise—I hadn’t known JOSM had this feature.
Next issue: my favorite keyboard shortcuts from the iD editor didn’t work in JOSM. I figured the keys might be different, and wondered whether someone had already created a shortcut conversion table between iD and JOSM.
Eventually, I found the relevant information.
At the moment, I don’t need many shortcuts—just a few essentials. The wireframe toggle is particularly important since it helps me cross-check OSM data against the underlying satellite imagery. Additionally, I often want to inspect specific OSM objects; I’ve already prepared several Violentmonkey scripts (such as BetterOSM and OSMHelper) to satisfy my curiosity. For that, I need to open the original URL of an OSM object in the browser.
A particular goal of mine will be to map Jackson Mississippi’s highest poverty areas. Source: Poverty Rate by Open Data for the City of Jackson, MS
There are many more neighborhoods with high poverty rates in the city of Jackson, MS but these below will be my primary focus. Once these areas are mapped, the scope will expand.
Focus
The neighborhood block Northeast of Boling Street and Bullard Street.
Includes: Hoover Street, Daniels Street, McAdoo Street, Broadview Street, Ford Avenue, Englewood Street, Hermitage Street, Garden Circle, Sagamore Street, Sagamore Street, Lynda Street, Breazeale Street, Dutchman Row, Palo Alto Street, Richmond Circle, and Ford Avenue.
Immediate area around Hawkins Field Airport.
The area Northeast of Sunset Drive, Coleman Avenue, and Elraine Boulevard up to Medgar Evers Boulevard.
The area between West Silas Brown Street, West Pascagoula Street, and South Gallatin Street.
Joining the Unique Mappers Network Nigeria has been a turning point for me. As a passionate student of Surveying and Geoinformatics, stepping into the world of OpenStreetMap was like unlocking a new level in my career and community impact journey.
My OSM Goals Contribute high-quality spatial data that makes real-life impact Master advanced mapping tools like JOSM, iD Editor, and HOT Tasking Manager Inspire fellow students and young professionals in Nigeria to embrace open mapping Support humanitarian mapping, disaster response, and climate resilience efforts.
To Everyone in the OSMFight Arena… This is more than a competition – it’s a movement. A call to action. A chance to leave our digital footprints across the globe. So whether you’re mapping buildings in Port Harcourt, roads in Kano, or health facilities in Bauchi – know that YOU are making a difference.
Let’s light up the map, one building at a time! Let’s bring the crown home 🏆🗺️ Let’s make Unique Mappers Network Nigeria proud 🙌🏾💚
It works !! OSMfight as a gamification for community engagement of OSM contribution -This week we are engaging paired mappers for OSMfight for the next one week - we need to get our project task running,engaging and fun to map https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/projects/815#description
OSMfight this week engages volunteers from our 1. Unique Mappers Abuja Mapathon Center 2. Unique Mappers Enugu Mapathon Center 3. Unique Mappers Port Harcourt Mapathon Center 4. Unique Mappers Kaduna Mapathon Center and others
Our challenge remains breaking the barrier of high cost of internet data subscription in Nigeria
Sustaining our mapathon centers with basic volunteering motivations
Engaging data users stakeholders workshop and lost more
We look forward to our partners and supporters !!!!!
You can support us here https://uniquemappers.org/donate/
Deutsche Post, which operates almost all of Germany’s postboxes, recently changed the collection times for most of them. This was discussed on the German Forum starting 4th of April. I wondered if this could be seen in the database.
So I created this diagram:
I’m trying to make a map of a streetcar line that I think ought to be built.
Little did I know when I first started my job in Antarctica that I’d become obsessed with editing OpenStreetMap during my empty hours at work. While I made an account back in 2019, that was simply to add a missing sidewalk from my mission in India that bothered me. Last month, I was playing around with some maps, seeing how different engines would interpret a cycle route I frequently took back home, and I noticed the trail was laid out with a bit of jank. I decided I had an account and the fix would be easy, so I went ahead and did it. I then saw the sidewalk options, and started playing with infilling the sidewalks around the route.
That was a mistake.
I have since spent hours adding sidewalks everywhere I’ve been. As I learned the tools and improved my methods, I started looking at other options. Street lamps, lowered curbs with tactile paving, and power poles were next. I started looking into other ways to contribute and installed Street Complete on my phone. I saw my office trailer wasn’t listed on the map at McMurdo, so I used OSMTracker for Android to map it out (Turns out, my phones GPS combined with the poor signal so far south makes things a bit more challenging). I then started using it to map all the infrastructure I could reach. I spent 2 hours on one of my few 2-day weekends down here out in -10F weather mapping out the power poles and lines connecting them.
Needless to say, this has become a bit of an obsession, but I suppose if I’m going to have that, I can at least use it to do some good in the world, no matter how small. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some suburban sprawl to map out. Those sidewalks aren’t going to add themselves!
Today, I had a good time at the national office and Mapathon center of Unique Mappers Network-the OpenStreetMap Nigeria Community NGO (osm.org/#map=18/4.899962/6.921081) to engage newbies, signing them up and training them on how to contribute to OpenStreetMap. Among them are Ngozi,Fortune,David and Chika (NMak,verified,Peter Msiion D and Victoria Jaja). Please, check out for them to welcome them and share your success stories and motivation for OSM volunteering. Fortune(verifiedfortune) joining Unique Mappers IT cohort 1 for 2025 would be contributing for the next 6 months as part of his IT task. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7329531711480926209 ![ ]
On 3rd May, We got back to our Map Nigeria Monthly Mapathon to sustain active OSM community participation in Nigeria, especially as we have mapping projects being coordinated in collaboration with TomTom one of Unique Mappers Network partner https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/projects/815#coordination . Volunteers joined from across the states and universities in Nigeria in a virtual coordinated mapathon, especially, the Unique Mappers Team we recently established in Abuja,Kaduna.Ile-Ife and Enugu.
In the first quarter of 2025, we have mobilized,signed-up and trained more than 100 newbies coordinated in a new whatsaap group of the community whatsaap group for orientation purposes. However, mapping contributions has been quite slow as the recent high increase in internet data subscription in Nigeria makes it more difficult for both old and new OSM volunteers to sacrifice the high cost of internet for voluntary mapping in OSM. You can hardly find free internet broad band access to engage volunteers in Mapathon.
Today 12th May 2025, I got to the place i’m suppose to do my IT, [INDUSTRIAL TRAINING], As at 10am in the morning when asked to come. I met 2 other people David and Ngozi, they welcomed me while i waited for the National Coordinator DR VICTOR .N. SUNDAY of unique mapper. After was, the National Coordinator DR Victor sunday came in, with out wasting much time, another person enter named chika i guess so, so he introduced OpenStreetMap to all of us that were there together. He said a lot of things about the OpenStreetMap, As what we use in carrying out mapping and it’s also free, like a volunteer thing. It was exciting to have DR Victor Sunday, the coordinator teach and talk about the OpenStreetMap, Me been introduce to OpenStreetMap, its not my first time but i was able to get a clear picture of what an OpenStreetMap was all about, which it was intresting, Now i can say i know how to map a building. yoooo!!! With everything that went on, everyone had to practice for themselves on learning how to do the mapping there self, which was cool and right now we are done with the classes on mapping as at 1:56PM, Everyone is expected to sign up with OpenStreetMap and map out at least 10 buildings showing you have learnt something for the day, hmmm its really a lot today though, i’m happy to have come here today and i’m ready for it. This is my passion, This is my dream,for the next six [6] months i will be here, i hope to achieve a lot, and thats it.
Manila
The State of the Map Call for Proposals deadline is approaching fast, and I know that feeling - staring at a blank page, wondering if your OSM experience is “conference-worthy.” Here’s the truth: if you’ve ever mapped something, solved a problem with OSM data, or helped someone learn about OpenStreetMap, you have a story worth sharing at State of the Map 2025!
Photo from SotM 2024, CC BY-SA 2.0
I think that often, the biggest hurdle isn’t writing the proposal - it’s deciding what to propose.
The best State of the Map talks come from personal experience. Think about:
Day 1) Home
We know OpenStreetMap is one of the most powerful and collaborative geospatial databases in the world. It relies on contributions from everyday users, developers, humanitarian workers, and mapping enthusiasts to keep data accurate and up to date.
But like any open data project, OSM faces issues. And understanding the types of issues we encounter is essential to maintaining map quality. One simple and effective way to think about OSM data problems is, to divide them into two broad categories:
These are problems that exist within the current OSM data. The features are already mapped, but something about them is incorrect, inconsistent, or outdated.
These are features or data that should be on the map but are completely absent. The problem here is not about fixing what’s wrong, it’s about recognizing what’s not there at all.
Thinking in terms of “existing” vs. “non-existing” issues helps:
This article is also available in Taiwanese Mandarin (台灣華語) and Taiwanese Hokkien / Taigi (台文)
In 2025, OpenStreetMap Taiwan Community has started to cooperate with Wikidata Taiwan Community to organize Street View Tour again, and in April, the tour was to Huwei and Tuku townships in Yunlin county. The funding source of this tour was Wikimedia Association of Taiwan, and the lunches for the two days (4/26 and 4/27) were sponsored by TomTom company.
The tour gathered outside the Yunlin High Speed Rail station in the morning of 4/26, and then set off to Huwei and Tuku townships to take photos of various temples related to Yunlin Liufang Mazu religion. Even though this was a street view tour, there were a lot of problems with the 360 camera this time 🫠, the one in the author’s car was always crashed (overheated?), while the one in the other car was never able to connect to the cell phone. The one on the car I was driving was always crashed (overheating?), while the one on the other car could not be connected by cell phone. Nonetheless, 53,854 street photos were uploaded to Mapillary this time (including both flat and 360 panoramic photos, some of which have not yet been uploaded at the time of writing this diary).
