Context

The US NGO Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT Us Org*) organizes an election to replace five of its directors for a 2 years term.

See the election wiki for more details.

Below reads my electoral platform; it adds and draws from my answers to members questions for candidates which can be read here as a complement.

Summary

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Resources of OpenStreetMap Foundation (OMSF), OSMF Local Chapters (LC): the question and status of paid services.

In the context of the community consultations phase of OpenStreetMap Uganda (see email 1), Poland (see email 2) and Japan (see email 3) Local Chapter LC applications, I shared my thoughts about paid services as a means of resources for OSMF and LCs. I have been invited to start a discussion of its own about this topic, hence this note.

I orginally developped this topics as well as others in the context of the MapUganda application which read as an email (see email 4) and a diary note (5) .

Since I think it makes sense to also discuss the status of paid services as a resource for OSMF and LC generally outside of a specific context, I am producing below the section on this topic extracted from my MapUganda-related email/note (4,5).

== Email extract - start ==

We shall first look back at OSMF and LC and remind ourselves of the early ages of the OSM project when its ecosystem was nascent and review some of the strengths that lead to its current affirmation.

Frederik’s question (see email 6) brings us with the non written rule or the jurisprudence behind the practices under which OSMF and LC from “developed” countries have been functioning resources-wise so far: banning paid services from their resources.

This is true at OSMF and this is equally true in given LC like OSMFR where this banning of “paid services” from the actual resources of the association is collectively restated year after year at its AGM.

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The NGO HOT US Inc organizes an election to replace one of its directors for a 6 months term.

Details of the election read on a wiki page

Below reads my electoral platform.

Summary

My OpenStreetMap journey is two fold. First, I co-founded the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) concept in 2008, I co-founded of HOT US inc in 2010, I served the org as a Board member (2010-2014) and as its de facto Operations Manager for Haiti and Sub-Saharan Africa (2010-2013). Second, I co-founded the French associations Projet Espace OSM Francophone (ProjetEOF) and Les Libres Géographes (LLG) which supported technically and organizationally at grassroot level the growth of autonomous OSM collectives in Haiti and French-speaking Africa from 2014 to date. I developed a span of skills and experiences fit to serve 6 months at the HOT US Inc Board and help the organization in its willingness to reflect, change, localize, decentralize and implement its activities in a way more respectful of the OSM way and especially OSMF policies, jurisprudence and practices. Through the inner human, technical and organizational knowledge I had built over time in these Francophone countries whose language is, by the way, not currently represented at the Board, I think I can help the organization through its willingness to change described by Tyler by serving at its Board for the next 6 months.

Detailed version

Given the tight timeline for this election, this diary nots is work in progress and likely to be expanded at a later stage.

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In the context of the 2020 OpenStreetMap Foundation Board Election,
- The Call to Take Action… has been collaboartively produced and endorsed by hundreds of individuals and dozens of organizations from OSM, Open Data and FreeSoftware mouvements
- It triggered discussions Archive as well as a Board decision
Below reads a few thoughts on the recent email conversations [1] at the origin of the “Call to Take Action and Confront Systemic Offensive Behaviour in the OSM Community” which lead to this 10-Dec 2020 Board decision and the proposed course of action.
I added a position statement following a comment on the first version of this diary entry.

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OpenStreetMap Uganda has applied to become an official Local Chapter of the OpenStreetMap Foundation - information application.

The elements enclosed in this diary note read as well as an email contributed to the community discussion as part of this Local Chapter application process.

Important work has been put into this Local Chapter (LC) discussion which provides the LCCWG, OSMF and OSM folks with important materials to consolidate parts of both LC (vision, processes) and OSMF.

Here are a few contributions to this on-going conversation from the perspective of someone heavily involved (HOT US Inc until 2013 and afterwords ProjetEOF and LesLibresGeographes) in Haiti and French-speaking African countries over the last decade starting and supporting local grassroot OSM collectives. I will not get back on how MapUganda relates to the current LC “doctrine” and processes, this has been well covered. I think that we need to keep looking at the question phrased by Frederik about possible “issues with granting local chapter status to a commercial organization with the main chartered purpose of providing paid services?”.

But first like others, I’d like to highlight the accomplishment that represent establishing MapUganda in its current shape through 10 years of work in Ugandan challenging environment.

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In 2017, despite the current level of influence that the US NGO “Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team US Inc” (aka HOT US Inc) has over the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) thanks to Kate Chapman and Mikel Maron (both OSMF Board directors), Heather Lesson, another former HOT US Inc Board Officer and one of its former President is running for the OSMF Board.

Since 2015, HOT US Inc, is the only organization of the OpenStreetMap ecosystem represented at the OSMF Board with two Directors: Kate Chapman (co-founder / former Board member / former Executive Director; elected at the OSMF Board in 2013) and Mikel Maron (co-founder / former President / actual Chairman of the members; elected at the OSMF Board in 2015).

This state of things provides HOT US Inc with more power of influence over the Foundation than any other organizations which is without precedent in the history of this institution. Consequently, this diminishes the representation of the OSM diversity at the Board of the Foundation.

Extending furthermore this HOT US Inc presence and influence at the OSMF Board and shrinking accordingly the room for the diversity of other perspectives around OSM to be represented in this Body of the organization would be a matter of concerns in terms of : - balance of powers between organizations - diversity of visions, thoughts and practices (including internal democracy and conflict of interests) around OSM - board dynamics: a collective of HOT US Inc Boardees would interact with single individuals

With these above risks in minds, given HOT US Inc current influence, its members (aka “hotties”) would be best advised to support the OSM project at the Foundation outside of the Board through its Working Groups to start with allowing “hotties” to get acquainted with another organization. This would mitigate risks of power games, lower tensions and strengthen OSM diversity by saving room for other perspectives and experiences around OSM to be represented at the OSMF Board.

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This short note is to draw your attention on the danger for OSMF (and the OSM project) in the case the United States NGO “Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team US Inc” (aka HOT US Inc) got a majority at the OSMF Board after this 2015 election.

Mikel Maron, Joseph Reeves and Yantisa Akhadi, all members of the NGO HOT US Inc, are running for the OSMF Board 1; Kate Chapman, the former ED of HOT US Inc serves already as Board Officer in OSMF.

Shall Mikel Maron, Joseph Reeves and Yantisa Akhadi be elected, HOT US Inc will get a majority at the Board of the Foundation. This will provide a single organization of the OSM ecosystem (HOT US Inc) with an unprecedented and excessive power of influence over the Foundation.

This running of three candidates from the same organization is puzzling and troublesome when one considers that HOT US Inc (and therefore its perspective around OpenStreetMap) is already represented at the OSMF Board since Sept 2013. Why extending its presence and influence and consequently diminishing the OSM diversity represented at the OSMF Board?

A greater HOT US Inc presence at the OSMF Board would be a matter of concern in terms of : - balance of powers - diversity of visions, thoughts and practices around OSM - board dynamics: a collective of HOT US Inc Boardees would interact with single individuals. This is a bad practice which is not followed by any Organizations; this is specifically true for representative bodies (organization representing organizations) such as OSMF

OSMF voting members shall pay attention to check and balances in terms of organizational powers prior casting their ballot 28-Nov onwards and bear in minds that HOT US Inc and this perspective about OSM is already represented at the OSMF Board through Kate Chapman.

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“Journée du SIG 2015 aka “GIS Day” 22h30 (UTC), c’est la fin de l’après-midi à Port Au Prince (Haiti) et la soiré est avancée à Lomé (Togo) après de longues et joyeuses heures de travail sur les projets OpenStreetMap, QGIS et données ouvertes (opendata).

Au Togo, à l’Université de Lomé (UL) : - 50 personnes ont travaillé toute la journée sur le logiciel de Système d’Informatioin Géographique (SIG) libre QGIS avec des données OpenStreetMap créées à travers les 4 premiers jours du maptrek “mivamapper” (Viens mapper en langue locale) sur la zone inondable d’Anfamé (Lomé) ainsi qu’avec des données “Core Operational Datasets” (COD) and “Fundamental Operational Datasets” (FOD) du Bureau d’Action à l’Action Humanitaire (OCHA) accessibles à travers les plateformes Humanitarian Response et HDX. - 20 personnes ont travaillé une demi journée à explorer, visualiser et télécharger des données géographiques de toutes sortes (openstreetmap, données ouvertes/ opendata et données placées sous d’autres licenses) en utilisant l’IFL (Infrastructure de Données Spatiales Francophone Libre) hébergée à Rennes à l’AgroCampus Ouest (France) et maintenue avec le soutien de la communauté GeOrchestra. - Ces mêmes 20 individus ont passé l’après-midi à affermir leur maitrise de l’outil de webmapping uMap en utilisant les mêmes types de données. - En parallèle de ces deux ateliers, l’ensemble de ces personnes ont continué de cartographier à distance les villes d’Anfamé et Biu définies comme les premiers objectifs du maptrek “mivamapper”, le mapathon de 8 jours du ProjetEOF et des communautés locales, commencé le 14-Novembre dernier. - Avec la tombée de la nuit sur Lomé, ces activités ont cédé la place au travail de préparation du SOTMTG 2015, la seconde édition du State Of The Map Afrique.

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“GIS Day” 08 PM (UTC), it’s mid day in Port Au Prince (Haiti) and night time in Lomé (Togo) after long and happy working hours around OSM, GIS and opendata.

In Togo at Université de Lomé UL (Lomé University UL): - 50 people working all day long on QGIS with OpenStreetMap data created through the first 4 days of the maptrek mivamapper (Come map Togo local language) in Anfamé (Lomé) but also with data from the OCHA Core Operational Datasets (COD) and Fundamental Operational Dataset (FOD) accessed via the Humanitarian Responses and the HDX platforms. - 20 people working half a day exploring, visualizing and retrieving geodata of all sorts (openstreetmap, opendata, gray-licensed data) with the IFL (Infrastructure de Données Spatiales Francophone Libre/ “Free Francophone SDI”-FFS) hosted in France at AgroCampus Ouest and maintained with the support of the GeOrchestra community. - The same 20 spent their afternoon reinforcing their grasp on the webmapping tool uMap with the same kind of data - Asides of this, the same people kept mapping Anfamé and Biu cities as the first targets set for the mivamapper maptrek experience started last Saturday 14-November (our 8 days-long mapathon) - Now that night fell over Lomé, the preparatory work for our second State Of The Map Africa, the SOTMTG 2015, is intensifying.

In Haiti at the Port Au Prince base of Haiti Communitere, - a couple of Haitian experienced mappers are being taught OSM on a train the trainer program - The same with the ProjetEOF collective are also organizing for both remote attendance of the SOTMTG 2015 and the last day of mivamapper - They are also laying the ground for a mapathon that will take place this 21-Nov at HC’s base and will focus on Areas Of Interest for local communities in Haiti - Like the days before, they’ll finish their days joining in Western African mappers in the mivamapper maptrek.

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From March 2010 until Novembre 2013, I had worked as a contractor for HOT US in a series of short term assignments in Haiti and Africa as a Project Manager and Acting Project Director. This happened in parallel of my continued volunteering work as one of the core coordinator of the organization around negotiation/design/implementation of field work, remote activations, networking, training and outreach.

In November and December 2013, I had worked as a freelancer for two short term assignments (2 weeks long missions) with the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) assisting in a translation sprint (French version of LearnOSM) and a training in Chad around OSM and the development of mobile application.

During March 2014 to March 2015:

• I had no work relation with HOT US.
• I worked as a freelancer in a series of short term assignments on OSM and GIS projects in development aid in French Speaking Countries (Burkina Faso, Senegal, Togo, Ivory Coast) with OIF as well as French (Aquinétic, Club des Hommes d’Affaires Africains), African (Association Malienne pour l’Eveil au Développement Durable - AMEDD) and Haitian associations (Haiti Communitere - HC). This entailed documentation (producing the first versions of two guides Opendata GIS handbook and organizational support), software development project (OSMstata) as well as field training and community building projects in the above-mentioned countries. Those actions have been part of the OIF support to the Projet Espace OSM Francophone (ProjetEOF). This happened in parallel with my continued voluntary engagement with the HOT project.
• I lectured around OSM and GIS in French Universities and Engineering Schools; some of the work was paid, some compensated, some volunteered.

If elected, as a board member, I will be acting in 2015 in compliance with HOT US conflict of interests (COI) policy and practises: informing the Board and excusing myself from the discussion and/or vote in case of COI.

Bio

I am a French Geographer and a GIS/Cartography expert with a background rooted in Litterature/ Social Sciences/ Social activism and 14 years of work in Overseas Academic Research, Humanitarian and Development actions.

I had been living over 7 years in Senegal and developed in this time an interest for Humanitarian and Development understood as fields of practices (theories and actions) where space and location tied to agile, innovative approaches to individual and community empowerment - geography in action - have a role to play which potential has not been fulfilled yet.

From my years as a practitioner in Overseas Academic Research, Humanitarian and Development worlds, I strongly believe that the OpenStreetMap project, the wider open data and open source movements are building a new emerging paradigm in territorial dynamics which allows for renewed global and local citizen actions and empowerments relevant for Humanitarian contexts and leading eventually to human Development.

The HOT Project

To foster the maturation of this paradigm, I invented the concept of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) Project with Mikel Maron from late 2007 to early 2009. I engaged in the OSM response to the Haiti 12-January 2010 earthquake, both remotely and on-the-ground, by leading the first field work of the HOT Project from March 2010 onwards. I co-founded the US-incorporated NGO HOT Us with Mikel Maron, Kate Chapman, Robert Soden and Dane Springmeyer in August 2010 to widen and deepen the HOT Project in Haiti and in Humanitarian and Development work overseas. I served as a Board Officer and Programs Director for HOT US between 2010-2014 and focused my engagement in developing the capacities of this Organization, its community and its partners to support and build local autonomous OSM communities in Haiti and Western/Central Africa.

The EOF Project

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