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Personal note and acknowledgement

The Open Mapping Women Awards 2024 was inspired by the 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝗔𝘀𝗶𝗮 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 where we recognized community champions across Asia. Of’course, this would not also be possible without the brains and heart of the wonder HOT Community Working Group members, and the amazing women in our open mapping community.

I would also want to thank my DEI Champion, friend and beb, Mikko Tamura, for instilling in me that why don’t we recognize every nominations? There may be some unsung heroines or leaders we don’t know globally or have just one nomination, but their impact goes beyond that.

I hope we can continue celebrating and recognizing women in our community!

(Note: Took me 8 months to write something about this. But hey, do you know that International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrate every March 8? And yes, just want to make that connection with 8 month delayed posting lol. Sorry for the very delayed update! 🥹)


Key highlights: We gathered and amplified 🎥 10 community events through the IWD 2024 OSM wikipage, 🏆 recognized 70 women and 33 communities and projects through the HOT Community WG’s Open Mapping Women Awards 2024, and 5️⃣ women champions shared inspirational messages about their journey, reflections, challenges and hope for the open mapping community: Carrol Chan, Bafamodei Hopeful, Chisom Okwuchi, Rabina Poudyal & Sandra Lucía Hernández Zetina 🙌

Under my [former] role as Online Community Engagement Lead at the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) and as part of the HOT Community Working Group, this year, we organized two initiatives:

  1. For the second time, we created the OSM Wiki: International Women’s Day 2024 to document IWD 2024 events and provide ideas on how we can celebrate women and their activities in the OSM and open mapping community (see 2022 IWD events here).

  2. The first ever Open Mapping Women Awards 2024 was organized to celebrate women in open mapping, as well as community and projects that strive to make our spaces more welcoming and inclusive.

photo IWD 2024 activities

OSM Wiki: International Women’s Day 2024

The IWD 2024 OSM Wiki documented about 10 community events!

Open Mapping Women Awards 2024

To celebrate IWD 2024, HOT Community Working Group proudly presented the Open Mapping Awards 2024. In a bid to recognize & applaud women for all their efforts & contribution towards the Humanitarian Open Mapping spaces, we welcomed nominations for 6 categories. Nominations were open from 22 February to 6 March. We received 93 nominations and we recognized all of them.

Then, in 28 March 2024, we held an online Awarding Ceremony to celebrate women, communities and projects.

Categories were:

  • Community / Project recognition awards:
  1. Community of the Year (group)
  2. Women-focused Project of the Year
  • Individual recognition awards:
  1. Emerging Star in Open Mapping of the Year
  2. Woman in Open Mapping Leader of the Year
  3. Woman in Open Mapping Mapper of the Year
  4. Woman Champion in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) of the Year

Across HOT social media and channels, we recognized 70 women and 33 communities and projects.

You can see the posters across different channels:

In addition, during the AWARDING CEREMONY for the Open Mapping Women Awards 2024, we invited 1 Awardee per category to provide inspirational messages about their journey and community projects.

  1. Carrol Chan, DEI Champion, shared her personal experience and “There is so much value we add to spaces, and if the door is closed, we simply break it down… or go through the window.”

  2. Hopeful Baramodei from Delighted Women Development Initiative, Community of the Year (group), talked about their mission to protect interest and empower women and girls though open mapping.

  3. Chisom Okwuchi, Woman in Open Mapping Mapper of the Year, discussed how she became more involved in OSM and humanitarian open mapping, “I started mapping still not as consistent, but I always to give it my best when I do it because I know that this goes a long way to helping the community.”

  4. Rabina Poudiyal, Emerging Star in Open Mapping of the Year, expressed her gratitude for recognizing each woman and our collective effort in open mapping, “We need to provide them [women] the necessary resources and mentorship in this domain.”

  5. Sandra Hernandez, Woman in Open Mapping Leader of the Year, emphasized the importance of community participation in open mapping, “By making their situation visible through mapping, we can improve their quality of life.”

You can watch the recordings here.

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