Update: I was not elected in the previous election. HOT is doing another round this year, to fill-in for the remainder of the term of one borad member who resigned. I’m putting myself forward again. This diary will again serve as my statement.

👋🏾 This is Maning from the Philippines and I’m running for the HOT board election this year. I am a long time OpenStreetMap contributor focusing mostly in building the open mapping community in my country and in Asia.

Over the years, I have been working and living with marginalized sectors such as indigenous peoples, fishefolks, upland farmers and, urban poor communities. In most of these communities, the common struggle is always tied to a place or resource. The understanding of place is a powerful platform that enables conversation between those in the margins and those in power to negotiate and work together. This is the reason I focused my work to using geospatial technology for social justice and conservation. I believe OpenStreetMap and to an extent, HOT as an intermediary is powerful and can effect social change.

I believe my experience with working with marginalized sectors, open data/technology and building online communities in the Philippines can provide a unique perspective to the new challenges of HOT as an organization. However, I recognize that I lack the depth and experience, because I’ve never been a board member of an international organization.

To understand how HOT board operates, I talked to a number of people directly involved in HOT in the last few days. The conversations were insightful and gave me a good perspective on what I should care as a board member. Below is a distillation of these conversations and my personal opinion of what the organization should care about.

• I care about how we build and empower communities. I define communities as the marginalized sectors we work with. Before collaborating with any sector, we need to ask if we are addressing the root cause of their struggle.
  • Will mapping buildings and roads help fishefolks secure their access to fishing grounds against big-time fishing operators?
  • Do indigenous communities even want to be in the map?
  • Will mapping routes used by internally displaced communities expose them to risk by oppressive authorities?
  • Do we listen to all community perspectives when we design projects?

These are hard questions we need to ask ourselves before any engagement. I don’t have the answer myself but the exercise of asking together with community is critical before taking any action.

• I care about the mapping process and quality of the data we create. The OpenStreetMap community cares about the data they contribute to the project. There were frictions in the past of the quality of contributions through HOT projects. We need to address this. The data we create should not only address a purpose but also follow the collective quality standards set forth by the OSM community. Building the map is integral to the empowerment of the communities we work with. Do we involve the communities in the full process of map making rather than just source of information or data collectors?
• I care about the sustainability of the tools and technologies we develop. HOT build incredible tools thoughout the years to support mapping. It’s been used even outside the context of humanitarian. We publish our code as open source. However, simply making it open source does not guarantee a developer community will thrive. Sometimes after an initial funding, development halts and the code rots. We need to find ways nurture our users and developers.
• I care about our staff and members. Our HOT staff are taking enormous risks as they go about their roles especially in developing countries where security is uncertain. Sometimes, some members of the OSM community criticize the quality of their work because it JUST a job. I strongly disagree because it is precisely because it IS their job. Their way of life depends on it and loosing a job because of mediocre work means less food on the table. We need to ensure our staff are taken care of and they have the resources needed to do their job well.

These are my thoughts for now. I don’t have the full understanding on how we execute within the bounds of what I listed above but I do believe this introspection is important as the organization moves to take on the new challenges collectively.

Happy mapping!