Motivations

Have you ever wondered when on earth, you would have opportunity to meet in person, have a handshake, a hug, an off-screen smile, take a coffee or even a lunch together with friends and colleagues you have remotely worked with, as weeks, months and years keeps counting in a virtual world of OpenStreetMap global community? Yes, our trending techs and AI keeps offering us the best of smart connectivity with everyone in a digital space of daily online activities that builds around us a world of virtual communities with uncertainties, barriers and boundaries of never meeting physically in our life time. Have you ever, thought about, the uncertainties of meeting in person such cool guy as Geoffery kateregga and the rest of HOT and OSM Africa local community leaders after consistently working virtually in HOT working groups, OSM Africa Mapathon, Community meeting and the rest for weeks, months and years in a virtual world of OSM.

What about meeting your boss-Pete Masters the Head HOT Global community (of course, if you are a community leader or aspiring and being mentored to be one) after having series of community mentorship, supervision, and virtual meetings through WhatsApp zoom, jitsi and the rest of the virtual platform that makes you forget the distance barrier and that you never had an opportunity to meet in person. Infact, after meeting virtually for years gone by, it only dawned on me that my very boss-Pete Masters had such an intimidating height that would dare me stretching out my neck when I first met him on my arrival for SOTM2022, in Florence, Italy. So, my virtual assumptions were wrong after all, thanks to FOSS4G2022 and unSummit HOT.

What about meeting with our dynamic CEO Tyler Radford at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), the guy who has for the past 7 years pulled HOT through to the implementation of policies and strategies we push to him and the staff as HOT-Voting members. If you are in academics, and as a researcher, which would you prefer most? attending a conference like FOSS4G2022 and SOTM2022 academic track session or even the lightening talk session to present your peer-reviewed research paper or talk in person where you meet one-one to network further or to present virtually from home? What about longing to meet and network with new professional partners and business partners.

What about meeting with Open Mapping NGO-founders like Janet Chapman of Crowd2Map Tanzania, Patricia Solis of Youth Mappers and the CEOs of the Giant Geospatial industry companies like GeoCAT, Mapillary Team, Maptile and the rest. I think beside meeting all these amazing people and organization, my topnotch motivation for this travel grant was to gain and share academic and professional experience for local community impact. And you can imagine without travel grant from FOSS4G and unSummit-HOT supported by sponsors, how would an OSM or Open-Source GIS enthusiast in academics in Nigeria, where, salaries were not paid for more than 7 months or a student in African country struggling to survive afford a conference travel cost of more than $3000 to break the barriers and boundaries of OSM virtual world.

Reminiscing-My trip to Florence-Italy.

Yes, it all started with a dream – I mean dream or motivations, with realistic action: at FOSS4G, I want to have my research work about OSM local and remote mappers presented in person and on the first announcement of the call around February/March for abstract, threw in my abstract submission. Next, I desired to meet in person my academic mentor and supervisor-Professor Maria Brovelli. Yes, I also wanted to volunteer at the conferences and taking advantage of both FOSS4G2022 and SOTM2022 happening at the same city of Florence, I knew, it would be a great time for me sharing experience that would give me a vantage position to bring home to my country-Nigeria hosting FOSS4G and SOTM. Besides, being there as a community leader in Nigeria would be a great motivation for sustainable OSM volunteering for the community. Amazingly, this dream came true, when on 11th May,2022, at about 11:00am WAT, a smile-provoking mail hit my box reading as follows: It is our pleasure to inform you that your FOSS4G Travel Grant application has been accepted!

Please confirm reception of this message by next Monday, May 16, 2022 and provide the following additional information needed to process your application by May 20, 2022: • A copy of your valid passport photo page • Tentative dates of arrival and departure The next day I jumped out traveling to our neighbouring state- Bayelsa from Port Harcourt, Rivers State Nigeria, to get my international passport renewed !! so I can submit on or before May 20th. The journey of getting a renewed passport is another story that eventually took more than 8 weeks (due to unavailability of passport booklet) and finally on July 16th, I was able to proceed with visa applications using my renewed passport. And while this process was going on, June 20th, it turned out a double blessing as this mail also hit my box at about 2:38pm WAT:

Dear Victor N. Sunday,

Congratulations! We are pleased to offer you a travel support grant to attend SOTM and FOSS4G 2022. As you specified in your application, the travel support grant covers the amount required for a SOTM conference ticket, accommodation, and minimal costs not covered by the FOSS4G grant.

We are excited to have you join the conferences and share your ideas and experiences with the other participants. Your travel support grant is contingent upon your attendance. If you can no longer attend, please let us know so we can offer your grant to another of the many people who applied.

Thanks to the FOSS4G Travel Grant committee, the unSummit Scholarship committee, the visa committee, Picolo, Anisa, Dana and Arnalie for an amazing follow up. Infact, Arnalie was probably 24/7 online communicating and following up with visa and travel readiness and I can still remember, it was time to leave, she created a WhatsApp group unSummit Scholars 2022 for to ensure everyone was on course and had a hitch-free trip. Thanks to our big sponsors GeoCAT and the rest listed on sponsorship page of FOSS4G2022 and SOTM2022. And more, especially, thanks to HOT for coming up with the unSummit HOT Scholars World Tour program

Concluding to be continued if you need more!!

Though, I still have much stories to share about my pre-departure preparations (internal travels for visa processing, COVID-19 PCR-Test, missing my flight-not deliberately), my 8hours layover time in Germany Frankfurt International Airport, my time in Italy (SOTM participation, Archi Ross Hostel time, Volunteering FOSS4G participation and business networking) as well as my post-arrival experience that worth sharing. I look forward to continuing this diary with time on my side but for now, let the video and pictures speak. And remember, am not yet done with my breaking the barriers of OSM virtual world and so I still have more reasons to be granted to travel to FOSS4G and SOTM conferences ahead in other countries with the support of our sponsors. And, if you also need to be granted the fund to travel, then, let us not just dream, but also prepare and work to have more than enough and excellent reasons/motivations and score points to convince the committee that we need to break the barrier-using FOSS4G and or SOTM Travel grants. Keep the passion for volunteering in your local osm community, let’s do more academic research about OSM Science and open-Source GIS, join your local OSM community working groups, HOT working group and keep contributing to OSM. I need you to be the next travel grantee for FOSS4G and or SOTM. Thanks to HOT unSummit Scholars World Tour program.