Mapping My Way to Inspiration: Reflections from SotM Asia 2024

This year, I had the privilege of stepping into a world of boundless ideas and shared dreams as I attended the State of the Map Asia (SotM Asia 2024) in Bangladesh. It was my first time at this prestigious conference, and the experience was more transformative than what I had thought. From the moment I arrived, I could sense the synergy of brilliant minds united by their passion for open mapping and the power of geospatial knowledge. The conference was a melting pot of diverse contributors—youthful innovators with fresh ideas and seasoned leaders whose enduring dedication has shaped the open mapping movement. It was heartening to see how this collective energy is driving solutions for challenges like disaster management and sustainable development. Conversations with participants revealed the exciting role startups are playing, leveraging OpenStreetMap (OSM) data to revolutionize industries and create meaningful societal impact.

As I stood there representing the YouthMappers community, I couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride. My tenure as Vice President of the YouthMappers chapter in 2022-23 had been a defining period, filled with opportunities to lead projects that empowered communities and fostered collaboration on a global scale. Now, as an alumnus, I was honored to showcase the results of our collective efforts. It was a reminder of the transformative power of teamwork and the potential of mapping to change lives.

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Open Mapping Guru Fellowship Journey

Introduction

Disasters, climate change, and various natural calamities profoundly impact the lives of humans, animals, and the environment. If we do not take action, the planet we call home becomes a place of fear and uncertainty. While we cannot prevent all natural occurrences, we can work towards a better future by addressing the mitigating factors that make Earth a more resilient place to live. Solutions come in many forms—distributing food, clothing, and financial support to those affected. One crucial method is through Open Mapping. Recently, the importance of Open Mapping has grown exponentially. From voluntary mappers to local government bodies, the significance and impact of Open Mapping are increasingly recognized. OpenStreetMap (OSM) serves as a platform for mapping purposes, while the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) leverages mapping for humanitarian causes. Since 2019, I have been an active mapper, experiencing the profound journey of becoming an Open Mapping Guru and participating in the Open Mapping Guru Fellowship Program. This journey has been dedicated to enhancing the quality of mapping, focusing on validation to ensure accuracy and reliability.

Fellowship Journey

Discovering Open Mapping

Five years ago, I embarked on my journey with Open Mapping, discovering its critical role in humanitarian efforts. The fellowship provided various tracks, and I chose the Validation Track, where I believe the most crucial and important details are checked and validated. Accurate mapping leads to more reliable results, which are essential for humanitarian purposes.

Learning and Using Validation Tools

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There is always a milestone waiting for everyone, and one of them was meant for me. A voyage that taught me several tools that can be used for validation and some that would help with mapping. We also had a lot more sessions with aerial images, mobile data collection apps, and other things.

Pre-Journey of DQI:

It was a lovely sensation to be noticed and called for the intern interview. Ralph and Becky were there to guide us. I couldn’t believe it till the mail arrived informing me of my selection and subsequent processing. From a total of 1008 applications from 81 different countries, representing the country of highest peak was an incredible achievement that I could never have imagined. We had a kickoff for the internship after a week or two, and I had an amazing voyage of friendship, professionalism, passion, and future.

Journey of HOT_DQI_2022

The three months’ journey with fellows from different nations was quite interesting. A bit of their languages, their culture, tradition, their mapping career and other opinions were magical and all these were possible because of the ‘Coffee Chat Session’ we had together.

Week 1 and 2

The week included basic and advanced ID Editor and JOSM training with numerous plugins, which has actually helped me with quality mapping and a bit faster mapping. The most intriguing thing I learned was about OpenCycleMap, multipolygons, and tall building mapping. I’m still surprised at the mapping of the tall buildings. I had a hunch I was a mapper, but there were many holes in my knowledge, and now that I’ve started learning about mapping from the first week, I am feeling a bit confident about mapping. The most important session was with Samson who walked us with the effective session of Top 10 Data Quality Aspects. We were so much excited for the further weeks to come.

Week 3

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