Nitwa Nyinawumuntu Jeannete Rebecca ! nka ndumwe mubagize umuryango mutoya wa OSM Rwanda nka nanawubereye umuyobozi, mumwaka wa 2017 nitabibiriye SOTM Africa muri uganda icyo gihe icyorezo cyari kitaratera kwari uguhurira hamwe nibihugu bitandukanye, twahagiriye ibihe byiza twahuye na za kominote nyishi ziturutse hirya no hino kwisi ndetse ubunararibonye bwazo twabwigiyeho byinshi

Ariko muruyu wa 2021 SOTM Africa yabereye kuri murandasi yaradutunguye cyane ntago twari twitezeko izatunyura bingana kuriya kuko ntago twari tubimenyereye Gusa igitangaje nuko naho twagise experience nziza ibiganiro byayo twari tumeze nkabahuye barikumwe muri salon neza neza!

habayeho Mapping Marathon ishimishije nubwo bamwe batabashije gutanga umusanzu nyawo ,kubera impanvu zubunararibonye budahagije ariko twigiyemo byishi , yewe dufata ningamba zitandukanye zishingiye kubyavugiwemo.

Mbonereho gushimira byumwihariko abagize uruhare mugutegura iyi State of the Map Africa ya 2021.

During the State of the Map Africa 2021 conference especially on theme of leaving no one behind and underrepresented communities as well as emerging from a global pandemic, as a women I understood the importance of inclusion and equity, I got to know the role of Representing a local community in the geospatial data collection on the OSM and discovered that is no longer impossible but it easy and applicable on any achievable scare any local growing Local community can afford .

Therefore, with all the ideas speakers emphasized at the conference we fully explored the topic of Beyond mapping and Reusing Open Street Map data/FOSS4G where we were able to learn how community can make use of available Geodata for personal and institutional development.

Also taking about the free software we were able to understand further the four major advantages that come with the free software like the run, improve, share , and Study. Generally, on our side, the experience was good especially the marathon, keynotes from different speakers, panel discussions, and lightning talks were really exciting . During this conference, I came to learn about the Open Mapping Hub ESA and the roles the hub has played to expand the Mapping communities in the region through the funding of various projects like the Open Cities Project in collaboration with other international institution.

In fact what I can say is, yes we still have a lot to learn about challenges and opportunities available , as well as tools to use . but the biggest interest everyone took as a take away considering my local community members who managed to attend , is that , it is no longer impossible for women , mothers and underrepresented community youths in general .

As a Rwandan young woman a mother and a teacher it was an honor to attend STATE OF THE MAP Africa for the second time , it was a great experience to attend such huge platform online after pandemic loneliness. I was excited to see and to hear from other experienced OSM communities , it was fun! I was impressed to my fellow Rwandan community member joining for the first time and Youth Mappers as well, the Team is now hungry and willing to learn more about advanced mapping on OSM.

https://twitter.com/Crowd2Map/status/1463873169618522123?t=OfpGgqBXHmfbSxEHFtrHJg&s=19 Local communities especially in rural areas including marginalized groups need also to understand these open source tools which have proved to be cost effective and reliable in addressing challenges in several sectors. From the presentation from Janet chapman, these groups are called digital champions. As organizations and groups in OSM, we should cultivate many digital champions, and from this we invest our efforts to the right people