Context

The US NGO Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT Us Org*) organizes an election to replace five of its directors for a 2 years term.

See the election wiki for more details.

Below reads my electoral platform; it adds and draws from my answers to members questions for candidates which can be read here as a complement.

Summary

This Sept 2021 election for the Board of the US NGO Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT US Org*) is important for the NGO, the open mapping movement across the humanitarian and development sectors and the people of the global south it serves as well as the OpenStreetMap project itself given the size reached by HOT and its transformative impact. I developed a span of skills and experiences fit to serve at the HOT Board for a full term and help the organization making a reality out of its ‘4-Dec 2020 statement of intent (also refered to as ‘vision statement’) for HOT within the humanitarian and OpenStreetMap ecosystems’ where reads a willingness to reflect, learn from what went wrong in the past, change, localize, decentralize and implement its activities in a way more respectful of the OSM way and especially OSMF policies, jurisprudence and practices. My OpenStreetMap journey is twofold. First, I co-founded the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) concept in 2008, I co-founded the NGO HOT US Org (registered as ‘HOT US inc’) in 2010, I served the org as a Board member (2010-2014) and as its de facto Operations Manager for Haiti and Sub-Saharan Africa (2010-2013). Second, from 2014, I co-founded the French associations Projet Espace OSM Francophone (ProjetEOF) and Les Libres Géographes (LLG) which supported technically and organizationally at grassroot level the growth of autonomous OSM collectives in Haiti and French-speaking Africa within the respect of the ethos and practices under which OSM emerged and grew as it is. This approach was similar to what HOT wants to achieve (with far greater resources) through the Audacious project since 2021. Through the inner human, technical and organizational knowledge I had built over time in these Francophone countries which are not currently represented at the Board (nor its language), I think I can help the organization through its willingness to change and implement its activites as per its vision statement by serving at its Board for the next 2 years.

Detailed version

This Sept 2021 election to replace 5 out the 7 members at the Board of the US NGO Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT Us org*) is important for the organization, the open mapping movement across the humanitarian and development sectors and the people of the global south it serves as well as the OpenStreetMap project itself.

With the size reached by HOT, the centrality it gained in the humanitarian and development sectors and the Audacious project it is implementing with “the goal of engaging 1 million contributors to map an area home to 1 billion people across 94 countries”, the NGO has a transformative impact for the humanitarian and development mapping as well as for the shape of the OSM project at local and global levels. How HOT operates with regard to the OSM ethos, practices and policies is therefore of direct importance for the course of local OSM dynamics (specifically when local communities are started by HOT), the same goes for the global OSM community.

In this context, like in my Jan 2021 candidacy, I’d like to start again by welcoming the path set forth by Tyler Redford for the organization in his 4-Dec 2020 OSM diary note titled “The past, present, and future of HOT” and presented as “a statement of intent for HOT within the humanitarian and OpenStreetMap ecosystems”. In this document which is also refered to as HOT Us org’s vision statement, one can sense a willingness to reflect, learn from what went wrong in the past, change, localize, decentralize and implement activities with more respect of the OSM way (especially OSMF policies, jurisprudence and practices), the culture of the Open, Free Software and Open Data movements. This is the approach that guided me in my action supporting the growth of autonomous local OSM communities in Haiti and Francophone African countries since 2010, first in HOT (2010-2014) and since 2014 in ProjetEOF and Les Libres Géographes (LLg). I shared Tyler’s analysis of the limits of HOT in his note: this explains why I had been active outside of the organization and why I had been critical of certain aspects of HOT culture and operations in public discussions notably at the OSM Foundation. For more details on this point, see the Jan 2021 election - questions/answers. With HOT having stated its willingness to change and initiated this change as one can read from Tyler diary notes (December 2020, September 2021), I think it’s worth reconnecting with organization and be active at its Board where I think I can be of help. This is why I ran up last January for a 6 month term and am running again this September after being invited to do so by voting members following the January scrutiny. I also appreciate how Tyler describes the working interactions between the Board and the ED/Staffs in charge of the operations in his diary note “What HOT’s board needs” and felt encouraged by seeing that that my 20 years of live and work experience within mapping and OpenStreetMap in France and Francophone countries of the global south matches two of the five profiles (“regional tour guide” and “humanitarian disruptor”) he felt needed at the Board.

I am modest in this run-up and aware of the limits of what can be achieved through a Board position. As an organization, HOT stabilized its organizational model of a membership-based organization which elects a strategic board in charge of strategic direction, oversight, policy setting, and fund-raising. Finally, HOT reached a size which requires time for any change to happen especially if one wants change to be consensual and built inclusively with all members and staffs. Given the state of internal transparency within HOT, like Kate Chapman (”I have spent the past 6 months on the HOT board, I feel like I’m just getting my feet under me” ; source : see Kate’s statement), like other candidates (see Sept 2021 election - questions/answers), I expect a learning curve (heavy readings and exchanges with Board, ED and staffs) before getting up to speed by adjusting my analysis about the state of the organization and the course of actions it calls for. To start with work will definitively have to be put into improving internal transparency. This is a matter of principle: “Open” reads in HOT. This is also a question of efficiency: a more transparent organization would benefit more directly from its members experience, more focused inputs, more focused electoral platforms and a reduced learning curve as well as less work on the Board, Chair and Operations sides to bring members up to speed on the life of the NGO and to onboard new Board officers.

In this run up, I want to state that I have no conflict of interest (CoI) with HOT and the other organizations I co-founded since then and in which I am currently engaged. I have been working as a freelancer for many organizations including the French association Les Libres Géographes (LLg) that I co-founded and of which I am not a Board member. Whilst not holding a formal continued work contract with LLg, I checked with my LLg friends and Colleagues/Board members that serving a 2 years term at the HOT Board would be compatible with my engagement in LLg. I did what other hotties did prior to me in such occasions (Dale Kunce at the American Red Cross [ARC] or Jorieke Vyncke and Pete Masters at Medecins Sans Frontières [MSF]). Shall a CoI situation apply, I’ll comply to the HOT US Inc CoI handling policy like other former Directors who were staffs of other organizations or freelancers working in this domain. Furthermore, my engagement within the French association Projet Espace OSM Francophone (Projet EOF) does not constitute a CoI neither. The association carries out its activities (which mostly revolve around local OSM animation) via the voluntary contribution of its members while its Bylaws exclude paid work (in French “prestation de service”) from its resources. For more details on this point, see the Jan 2021 election - questions/answers. With modesty in minds since it’s not in my nature to put forth my facts and achievements. Yet I believe I have to do so at the occasion of this Board election since I am unknown to some of the new Voting members of the Organization. I grew up in Senegal as an adolescent, had some study times there and my first work experience in the academic research. Since 2010 through my years in HOT and the Projet EOF/LLg, it had not been a year (2020 excepted because of the SARS-COV-2) in which I had lived and worked supporting the growth of the OSM project at grassroot community level less than 1/3 of the year in Haiti or mostly Western Africa (plus Chad, Congo and Madagascar). I feel privileged for these regular and intense contacts with territories and people who are a part of me. I am grateful that I had the opportunity and the happiness to have been in person over years with most of those, women and men, young and less young who are making OSM an autonomous local reality in these countries. I did my best, not without individual or collective failure, to support technically and organizational people interested or active in OSM in building up their technical, community, organizational skills so that they can gather, if they want to, and build OSM collectives they gradually incorporated in the national law of their country with the possibility of evolving towards local groups and eventually OSMF local chapters. Some of the hundreds I met and that I accompanied as well as I was accompanied by them in this journey are now members of our organization, are active in their country under their OSM association, some are freelancers, other engaged in work collectives of different natures, others do and make OSM as a passion. Together they form an autonomous solid community layer who can benefit more from HOT US Inc shall the change advocated by Tyler in his statement materializes. I’d like to act as a connector between these folks, their organizations, these territories and our organization as well as the OSM Foundation Local Chapter Community Working Group (LCCWG).

I believe I can help our organization not only through my knowledge of the OSM people in these territories and the local OSM dynamics at work there but also through my 20+ years of experience in Geography and Geomatics within various ecosystems (academic, humanitarian, development, civic tech and activism) at global and local scale in France, Haiti and Sub-Saharan Africa. I had been working/cooperating for years with Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and its dense network of researchers and partners in countries of the “global south”. I had been working 6 years as GIS specialist at the HQ of the UN World Food Program (the largest world humanitarian organization) in charge of the last two years of the building the UN Spatial Data Infrastructure for Transport (UNSDIT) under which the UN Logistics Cluster operate nowadays using OSM as its baseline layers and serving it both on its WFP (Geonode) SDI as well as through the #HDX #Humdata platform ; one of the creator of the HDX concept, Cj Hendrix being my close friend and colleague in the UN by then and still is. From my times with OSM under HOT and LLg, I conceived and implemented a large span of programs which differed by natures, donors, partners. Programs can feature mapping, training, documentation, mentoring, outreach, organizational support to local entrepreneurship as well as community, OSMF type of associations, OSMF governance, software development…. These activities can be conducted through 100% voluntary or fully funded projects. They can vary in sizes. They can be below 5 to 15k USD. They can be over 100k USD (all costs included for roughly 4 months of operational life) spanning 200k USD [Haiti St-Marc COSHMA/HOT/USAID-OTI] to 400k USD [Haiti North/NorthEast departments HOT/USAID-OTI]. The array of partners is large: World Bank (GFDRR/ICT), UN (IOM), USAID, EU ECHO, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), IRD, Gret, Agence Française de développement, various French universities to name some of the main entities. The number of projects all successfully conceived, implemented and accounted over the decade is important (+60). All of these project work featured a specific community support component I think fundamental for HOT in this new phase of its history. This had been true and constant since my first Haitian field mission in March 2010. It varies in its dimension and budget depending on project but had been constant. On top of OSM, GIS, and SDI mapping methodologies, techniques, tools, documentation, hardware materials passed to communities there had always been an organizational support component. This organizational component consisting of documents, training, mentoring was mainly twofold. It aimed at providing an understanding of the OSM ecosystem and the OSMF sets of policy documents and practices which regulate the interactions of the various parts and actors of the OSM ecosystem at community level, within the OSMF, OSMF Local Chapters, OSMF OSM local groups, within the business area. This was meant to inform local mappers about guidelines for organizing themselves the OSM way within a perspective aimed at dialoguing with the OSMF and other OSM entities so that the overall OSMF policies and practices can encompass the new OSM ways in the making in the South. The second axis of this organizational support component was tailored to help local mappers in providing paid services (around their skills and the skills they gained through any project) as freelancers or as a part of a work collectives of all sorts (associations, small or large firms) or as employees of the formal public or private sector. There’s still a lot to be fixed and to be bettered in all of these actions and programs, but I believe that the span of experiences in a region and a language which is not directly represented at the Board of HOT right now, would be of help for the organization in the current phase of its existence and especially when it comes to successfully implement the Audacious project in Haiti and African Francophone countries as per the organization vision statement.

Essentially, I have always had a pioneering role in the mapping movement across the humanitarian and development sectors and in HOT. I have always conceived HOT, designed and implemented its projects in Francophone territories under a framework very similar to what the Audacious project seeks to unfold by putting always first the growth of local communities at technical and organizational level within the respect of the ethos and practices under which OSM emerged and grew as the it is. I conducted these programs within HOT in Haiti and African Francophone countries until 2014 and continued these dynamics outside of HOT from 2014 onwards. With the current call for diversity, when HOT is starting to work more centrally in Francophone African countries, this experience, tied to the ones which is held by talented members from Haiti and Africa can clearly be an asset for the organization so that its activities are as relevant, useful and impactful for the OSM dynamics in these territories and the people leaving there.

If elected, here are the topics on which I’ll focus my work as a Board member to:
- Ensure the OSM ethos, practices, texts, and support to local community comes always first in HOT
- Improve transparency to members, OSM members and partners so that the organization can in return benefit from a more informed membership as well as a more focused support from the OSM community and its partner
- Develop a culture of evaluation via internal capacities and external evaluations with a specific focus on the Audacious project given its centrality for HOT and OSM and be sure it remains on tracks
- Improve our culture of discussions during elections and community consultations; rely more on surveys/polls and votes to better engage and understand the membership
- Apply to ourselves the Call to take action… by developing an affirmative action program for and in defense of all minorities. This ensure HOT is a safe space for all, that voting members or staffs are confident speaking out their thoughts on the matters of the NGO. This to ensure minorities are well represented in the membership, the staffs and at the Board. Ensure internal capacity building so that members from minority cultures can be put in a position to take an informed and autonomous part in the life of the organization.
- Ensure HOT will remain a membership-based organization where board members come from the membership, are voted by the membership and are responsible towards the membership (compliance with our current Bylaws). Ensure that Board responsibilities within the paradigm of a strategic board in charge of strategic direction, oversight, policy setting, and fund-raising are met directly via the domain expertise of the directors or externally via staff, subcontractor or advisor in case this expertise is not represented at the Board
- Continue and contribute to the on-going discussion, thinking and consultation to define the relevant changes (if any) to bring to HOT membership model in the future and define the relevant role and place of voting members, staffs, volunteers and partners whose combined action make of HOT what it is nowadays. Among existing models, the multi-tiered membership of a French type of cooperative called SCIC (Société Coopérative d’Intérêt Collectif) is worth of interest. It organizes the membership in several electoral colleges with different voting weights. It could allow for defining the right balance for the voting weights of each electoral colleges (non-staff voting members, staff voting members, partners and volunteers) so that non-staff voting members can remain in control of the organization while staffs voting members could fully participate in the whole life of HOT
- Help HOT defining its function of local individual, groups, ecosystem incubator
- Help HOT pursuing its decentralization process
- Help HOT thinking through its running of digital commons (services) in a neutral way for the OSM ecosystem


Disambiguation: ‘HOT’, ‘HOT US Inc’, ‘HOT US Org’.
As a result of the election discussion, I decided to stop refering to the NGO as ‘HOT US Inc’ (as per its incorporation document) like I did since 2014 and switch to ‘HOT Us org’. I had been doing so in order in the past to distinguish between the organization and a sub-part of the OpenStreetMap community made of members volunteering informally for the organization through their contributions of all natures. I was then thinking that the name from the incorporation document was a neutral and efficient descriptor for the organization It avoided HOT as a catch all which had been generating confusion and tensions within the various parts of the OSM ecosystem as acknowledged by the organization itself in its vision statement. As a result of the on-going Sept 2021 electoral discussions the need for differentiating the NGO from its ‘community’ was recognized but a majority of members (US and UK citizens as well as folks from other countries) put forth that the ‘Inc’ had a negative connotation and was negatively preceived. A discussion is on-going within the membership about definitions and contextuals uses. Prior it concludes, I am using ‘HOT Us org’ to refer to the organization, the NGO Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. I’ll wrap this up into another diary note after this election.