The State of the Map Asia 2024 conference wasn’t held in a main travelers’ hub like Thailand but rather chose a much, not that well-known country Bangladesh, and its previously unsettled political situation, which ended with the Prime Minster fleeing to India. Summarizing all these factors might discourage most people from visiting this country, ended up most of the attendees are domestic, and plus someone like me who is a foreigner is lucky enough to obtain a VISA to pay a visit.

Bangladesh is a young country, during the conference we saw many attendees were students, who might help those international aid projects to gather map data. We can see teachers bring their students to attend the conference. And there are also various student clubs, like all Youthmappers in Bangladesh, publishing their project results. One day we might see when the country is prosperous, and students grown up, there is a chance that they will map shops and buildings in the city where they live.

I want to write something about the general participant situation here in the Asia Pacific area. In developed countries like Taiwan, there are individuals who launch interest groups to map specific map features or netizens with enough motive to contribute to OpenStreetMap project. There are other countries that rely on aid projects to map local map data, and sometimes there are sone who will map modern map features. I have heard a talk about solar pannels in Dahka.

The State of the Map Asia splits its session into quite strange 10-minute parts. I accidentally submitted two talks, and did not get rejected. I had to give a talk on the first and second day, one I introduced the community in Taiwan, and the other day I introduced some interesting projects hosted by individual mappers.

I almost can’t fly into Dahka due to the immigration office having some questions about my visit. Finally, the host came to the airport to rescue me and took the connecting flight to Cox’s Bazar. Besides the conference, I had a walk every day on the beach, listening to the sound of the waves of the Indian Ocean. When I recalled the memory of my Bangladesh trip, there was a challenge to get a VISA on arrival. I take the chance to visit Bangladesh when attending a conference and add Bangladesh to the list of South Asia countries.