Hi community I’m sharing my application to become a Voting Member of HOT through this diary entry.
What does HOT mean to me?
For me, HOT has been a true school since I started mapping in OpenStreetMap. At the end of 2022, as a founding member of the YouthMappers SAGEMA chapter, we were excited to begin using this tool in our research and community work. My first contact was with Juan Melo, Data Quality Senior Associate at the HOT Open Mapping Hub for Latin America and the Caribbean, who became a mentor to our chapter and taught us the tools we needed to organize our first mapathon at the campus of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. After that experience, I decided to get more involved in volunteer mapping. That’s how I discovered the Tasking Manager and participated in my first humanitarian project: mapping after the earthquake in Morocco. That experience showed me the real impact of OSM, and how with just a little time, we can help save lives. Since then, I have been part of various HOT projects, and each of them has been a constant learning space. HOT has not only been a platform for action, but also a space for training, connection, and personal and collective growth.