As some of you might know, Facebook has been using machine learning algorithms to help human mappers edit and validate geometry faster. Over the past year, we have completed mapping all the roads in Thailand and most of Indonesia. Watch the video below to see the progress.

Video on Thailand Mapping

Based on this work, many NGO’s, local communities, and tech companies have requested the data, which we have been sharing when available, like we did for last year’s Kerala Floods to help with disaster response. In the case of disasters, many enthusiastic OSM volunteers offer up their time to help fill in an area’s missing data. However, new volunteers often encounter two challenges: it’s hard to get started quickly and there’s a steep learning curve to master high-quality edits. To address these challenges, we’ve created a version of the primary OSM iD editor that we call RapiD to helps every mapper make edits quickly using roads suggested by our Map With AI service. It also has strong integrity checks to ensure edit quality. Special thanks to the original makers of the iD tool for building an incredible foundation.

In a previous diary, we shared our internal workflow for mapping using AI. Since that time, we have made some significant changes in order to allow greater accessibility and simplicity when working with the data. These enhancements and simplifications have coalesced into the current version of the RapiD editor. Over the next few weeks, we are happy to announce that we’ll start testing RapiD using the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Assisted Mapping for Good Tasking Manager with selected partners to gather critical feedback. Based on that feedback, we will be exploring the possibility of opening the RapiD editor source code and how-to service documentation to the entire OSM community.

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Getting lost in rural Rwanda is kind of disconcerting. My team and I had a general idea of which body of water to follow, but without a proper map, it was hard to know exactly which bend in the river we had just passed. But mapping is why we’re here, after all. We’re filling in this community’s map partly so emergency responders won’t get lost. Unlike us, emergency responders don’t have the time to decipher bends in the river. Someone else won’t do it for this community, so they’re doing it themselves, with a little help from my team and a lot of help from OpenStreetMap.

A year and a half earlier I decided to take a risk. I left my cozy job with Apple to work for the American Red Cross. After having completed Graduate degrees in Nonprofit Management and Emergency Management, it seemed like the right thing to do.

My first week happened to coincide with the onset of the Ebola crises. By my second day on the job I was using OpenStreetMap to make maps for Red Cross disaster responders deploying to West Africa. I got to witness the power of digital volunteers, and saw how the new information they were adding was being used in the field to make real-time decisions. Teamwork and collaboration around mapping unfolded before my eyes. Needless to say I fell in love, and wanted more.

Months later I got my wish when we launched the Missing Maps Project. The goal of the project is to map the most vulnerable places in the world so that NGOs, communities and individuals can use the maps and the data to better respond to crises. The project seeks to literally and figuratively put people and their communities on the map.

Since Missing Maps’s launch in 2014 I have hosted and helped plan, more than 15 mapathons in the US. We’ve been able to expand our reach by coordinating with companies, government departments, universities and community groups around the country to grow interest in mapathons and introduce people to OpenStreetMap.

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by Drishtie Patel, Dan Joseph

Fire sensor project background

Nicely conditioned roads, beautiful beaches, cliffs, scenic bays, promenades and hillside communities is what you think of when you hear Cape Town. However a couple kilometers away from these spectacular sceneries and coastlines is Khayelitsha. A partially informal township reputed to be the largest and fastest growing township in South Africa. It’s a humbling sight to see.

Khayelitsha, CC BY-SA elyob

If you get the chance to spend some time there you will see the amazing community spirit and warmth in the area despite its well known reputation for being extremely dangerous.

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