News
A return to Chad three months after the set up of the EUROSHA mapping team
I just landed in Ndjamena (Chad) for HOT. I am joining again the team of mappers of the EUROSHA Chad project that I helped setting up their activities in N’Djamena and Goré last fall (October/ November – see blog post) in close coordination with ACRA and France Volontaires, HOT’s partners on this project. This is an interesting time for the EUROSHA project
The Openstreetmap_Senegal (OSM_SN) community is expanding to the region of Casamance in Senegal
Suite aux derniers évènements articulants les communautés OSM naissantes à Dakar, Thies, Saint-Louis et Rufisque, la semaine passée fut l’occasion d’un évènement majeur pour...
Syria Activation
Following a request from UN OCHA and SNAP, HOT is activating a remote mapping project in Syria to support humanitarian groups working within the current crisis. This post is intended to introduce the project and to appeal for help from volunteers. HOT has limited experience in working within the Arabic speaking world and we are hopeful that this activation will allow us to broaden our skills base in this area.
OpenStreetMap Usage in Jakarta Flood Response
Days of rain in Jakarta and surrounding areas have caused massive flooding in the region. Today (Friday) the flooding has eased somewhat but thousands of people remain displaced and 11 people have died. A state of emergency has been called until January 27th for Indonesia's capital city.
Animating the OSM Senegal Community
In Dakar, back from Saint-Louis where I have been mostly working animating the OSM SN community in this town harnessing on our partnerships with BantaLabs and University Gaston Berger and reaching out to new partners from NGOs and Governements. Prior getting into details about those intense and rich days for the OSM Project Senegal and its community, I'd like to take a look back at the past weeks since the end of the HOT set up mission of this program by Mid December.
At BarCamp Thies
I spent a week in Dakar preparing with some active mappers of the OSM SN community the attendance of the Thies BarCamp organized by the Senegalese OpenSource movement.
Back to Senegal, Further Creating a Mapping Community
Augustin and I conducted HOT’s third deployment HOT to Senegal 24 November to 15 December, 2012. The main objective: set-up Augustin Doury for five months of volunteering to grow the OSM SN community and to improve the maps of the area. This initiative has been possible with the funding of Fondation de France (FDF) and our partnership with OpenStreetMap France.
HOT Activation, Sud et Nord Kivu, République démocratique du Congo
Situation inquiétante dans les Kivus 2012-12-16 Compte-tenu que la situation devient plus grave, HOT modifie le statut de Pré-Activation à Activation. À la fin...
HOT Activation, South and North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo
Worrying situation in the Kivus 2012-12-16 Given the more severe situation in the Kivus, HOT changes the status from Pre-Activation to Activation. In a...
Update from the Red Cross on Gulu and Lira
An update and thank you from Robert Banick at the American Red Cross on Gulu and Lira mapping
The first stage of the Red Cross's on-the-ground mapping exercises are wrapping up and I wanted to provide an update to all the incredible volunteers who got us this far.
[inline:2012-09-06 12.57.56 HDR.jpg]Your contributions to OSM were huge to us in Gulu, where we led a training on GIS basics for 12 Uganda Red Cross Society members. OSM in Gulu was used throughout to ground the course in real data: our GPS exercises were about collecting data for OSM and our mapping sessions made heavy use of the Gulu data. Uganda Red Cross staff were pretty delighted to see their contributions go right into the map. [inline:Gulu Fire Risk.png]
From Remote Tracing to Field Mapping in Padang
Padang, West Sumatra, has been identified as one of Indonesia's most vulnerable cities; in 2009 an earthquake claimed over 1,100 lives and destroyed or...
Tropical Storm Isaac getting to Haiti
Came accross this serious hurricane warning today from NOAA, informing that the tropical storm Isaac may hit Haiti severely from the next 24-36 hours. We think it is worthy to take Isaac seriously and so we are starting a local preparation coordinated by Jaakko Helleranta and Brian Wolford who have been living in Haiti for almost two years and have carried out many OSM activities and participated to HOT programs there.
Understanding Risk Forum, Mapping Global Risk, July 2-6 2012
The World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Risk and Recovery (GFDRR) organizes the Understanding Risk (UR) Forum every two years. The theme of this...
4th Largest Country, 4th Largest City, Best Community Mapped for Preparedness
Rapid growth and low elevation makes flooding in Jakarta problematic. Innovative approaches are needed for contingency planning and impact modeling. DKI Jakarta's Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) is developing a detailed scenario to estimate impacts of future flooding. This scenario will estimate the impact on people, schools, hospitals, and other important buildings. Such a scenario will become a powerful tool for local government and other stakeholders to take action to be better prepared for future floods. This first step in this type of analysis is having available data, without data it is impossible to make an accurate estimation. Throughout March mapping events will be held in DKI Jakarta to work with local leaders to collect such data, by utilizing OpenStreetMap.
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada department, Ottawa
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada department (DFAIT) Open Policy Day Session, Feb. 9 in Ottawa, was attended by 200 staff members. Personal in embassies could follow the morning session by teleconference.
The objective was to expose the DFAIT staff to new ways of working for policy making and information exchanges inside the department (ie. Web 2.0, Social network, Open Data, Open Innovation, NGO's and how to adapt with collaborative efforts, etc). There were formal presentations in the morning from USA Secretary of State staff and DFAIT staff, Google, Wikimedia Foundation and World Bank representatives.
Wrapping up the Libyan Health Facility Activation
On January 14, we formally closed HOT's activation to help map health facilities in Libya.
This was definitely a new kind of activity for HOT. To start, we were directly by WHO to take part, and staff at the Tunis WMC office was incredibly active in the entire process.