I’ve been to SOTM2019 in Heildelberg Germany and I can’t believe it. For some time now I have been thinking that this type of events can be a nightmare, many hours of travel, everything happening very fast, having to choose the best or conferences that interest you most and always with the feeling that what is happening in the other halls may be better than what you are seeing.

Therefore, you have to give the task of letting it flow that was what I did to be able to participate in the #SOTM2019, since I applied for the scholarship I tried to keep the expectations low not to disappoint me, when I got the acceptance I could not believe it, in fact I doubted a little until the day I boarded the first plane to Germany, after that everything flows incredibly well and allowed me to have one of the best experiences of my life, not only for knowing a new place, but for meeting people who have been working for many years on the different topics that gather around the community of OpenStreetMap.

Heildelberg, is a small town in the north of Germany, one of the few cities that were not destroyed during the Second World War, which makes its architecture remain intact therefore retains a very beautiful historic center, for me, as a film of knights and dragons, with a castle, an epic bridge where you could fantasize about all kinds of epic stories. I suppose that each place selected to perform the SOTM each year has something magical, but being the first time I participate in the event and also travel to Europe, I can not help but recognize the surprising and beautiful of the trip.

The OpenStreetMap community decided to meet here in 2019, to share the past, present and future of the entire ecosystem that revolves around the MAPA of the world, the geographic database created node by node, by a community of volunteers who love maps. As a scholar I had the unique opportunity to meet people I had only read about on mailing lists or with whom I had crossed messages on a related platform.

Of the people I met, I must highlight the following

Erick and Porfirio, from Bolivia and Nicaragua respectively, with whom I shared a room in the Hostel and we had very interesting conversations about the state of OSM in our countries among other topics that made the stay pleasant and comfortable when it was necessary to speak in Spanish. :)

Simon Pool (Simon04) One of the most active developers of JOSM, the map editor that I use and that also turned out to be a very kind person and willing to help when needed, now I know that in the development team of this software people are willing to offer their help and that we can count on them to perhaps add the needs we have to the application we use.

Manfred and all the WeeklyOSM team, who welcomed me as part of the team of editors and translators of the weekly and I hope to participate continuously because I think it is a very important project for the dissemination of OpenStreetMap in the world.

Getting to know the Mapillary team personally at the conference was very good as we have talked before via Telegram and it is good to put a face to people behind the keyboard.

I cannot forget to mention the HOT team, with whom I have talked about different topics in the last years and I had not had the pleasure of meeting them, Jessica, Rebecca, Felix, Geofrey, thank you very much for the talks we were able to have.

Finally it was great to meet Alban again from the NomadMaps project that was at my house in Colombia as part of his tour of Colombia, a hug friend. :)

One of the things that struck me the most is that one of the most talked about topics in the OSM community is how to map public transportation in different parts of the world, whether by companies or volunteers like MapaNica’s friends in Nicaragua, I saw how they are taking a step towards practical applications of open geographic information and how they are paying a lot of attention to that. Of course, the importance of OSM for humanitarian attention cannot be overlooked, as it is the other application that has a lot of strength that was talked about in this event.

Finally, the experience exceeded all expectations and I hope to be able to participate in other SOTM in the future.

Many thanks to all the event organizers and the OpenStreetMap Foundation that made my trip and participation in the event possible.