HOT, it seems, is at another inflection point.

I would like to contribute and lead now to this new set of challenges.

I got involved with HOT 2011 and later served on the board from 2015-2018 focusing on stabilizing and foundation building to create a sustainable HOT. That sustainability has just been secured, at least for the next 5 years. The security that comes from long term guaranteed funding also has many pitfalls. I have the strategic and practical experience to return to the HOT board and make a difference.

I am a very strong advocate for local mappers and have helped train people throughout the world to map their own communities. Having contributed training and seed funding to mappers in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Haiti, West Africa and many other places. Local communities are the heart of OpenStreetMap. They are the reason HOT exists. They are the reason we must continue to be vigilant about the type of NGO HOT can and should be.

In my last days in my old job leading the GIS team at American Red Cross I secured the funds for Tasking Manager 4. I lead the team that created Portable OpenStreetMap, OpenMapKit, and many other technical tools related to improving map workflows and map quality.

Today, my day job is not day to day to mapping nor to OpenStreetMap. After some time away from the HOT board and Missing Maps to focus on my new job for a little bit I’m excited to re-engage and contribute again to the leadership of an amazing organization. I have strong strategic, fiduciary, and board experience that is needed at the moment to help HOT scale effectively.

I’m not going to give a list of priorities for the things I will focus on. I think it best to list my tenants that will guide my conversations and decisions on the board.

1. What is in best interest of local mapping communities?
2. Is this in the best interest of HOT’s volunteer mappers?
3. Is this making HOT just another INGO?
4. Are HOT paid staff best supporting local mappers?

Thank you and happy mapping.

Missing Maps Leaderboard Updates

When Missing Maps started, it was impossible to imagine what it would ultimately become. The goal was to simply make more open map data available before disasters and to help the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team build more local mapping communities.

Early on we realized we needed better ways to quantify and track the impact of Missing Maps to OSM. Nearly 4 years later, we are making great progress on both of those fronts. Our efforts eventually produced the Missing Maps leaderboards, which sought to track individual users and teams.

The Missing Maps leaderboard technology is a streaming, real-time look at who is supporting our work. Initially funded by the Cisco Foundation, the leaderboards became a major way to engage and reward mappers. We were blown away when 4,000 mappers helped out on Missing Maps projects during the first year. Four years later, 52,000 mappers contributed to 1,200 mapping Missing Maps projects, the vast majority of those mappers were making their very first edits to OSM. In 2017, 10% of all new OSM mappers made their first edits in support of Missing Maps. The scale of tracking all these new users created problems for our system.

Thanks to a generous grant from Microsoft Philanthropies, Pacific Atlas migrated the stack to Microsoft Azure, completed a full analysis backfill, and rewrote large chunks to enable things to scale better in the future without dropping edits. As always, all the code is open, including the leaderboard code and the osm-stats infrastructure. We are always looking for help to create new badges or suggest new ideas.

The Numbers

• Total Contributors: We did a complete backfill of OSM history using OSMesa to capture dropped edits and editors (and to update our calculations). You’ll notice that our number of total contributors is well over 52,000 now.
• Total Edits: The total number of edits has increased.
• Building Edits: This is a big change. In the past we we tracked Buildings Added to OSM. After doing some reflection, this wasn’t a good representation of the total volume of edits Missing Maps contributes. Building Edits now reflects both new additions and the contributions of our validators to clean up and coach new mappers.
• Road Measurements: We’ve got some egg on our face here. We fixed some math errors (briefly: edits were counting the full length) and we are now correctly reporting the total km of roads added and edited.

What’s New

• New Data: We now have data for all changesets (previously we’d only been tracking #hashtagged ones). This means that user profile pages now include all edits made, rather than only those associated with hashtags. Users can still find their contribution to an individual hashtag by searching for the hashtag and user name in the leaderboards.
• More POIs: Edits with amenity=* were previously the only POIs accounted for; we’ve expanded the set of tags tracked to better match Missing Maps editing activity.
• New Leaders: With the new data we’ve got some new leaders. I’m totally amazed at the commitment and dedication of Missing Maps mappers. From the first-time mapathon volunteer who manages to complete 40 buildings to the repeat mappers who make literally hundreds of thousands of edits.
• User Map: We changed the way the user contribution map is showing. Instead of a heatmap, we now display a simple choropleth that breaks down contributions by country.
• Badges: We dropped support for the GPS Tracks Badge. We weren’t seeing a big uptick in new tracks added to OSM and this is already supported on the OSM user profiles.
• Slightly less real-time: Due to the increased volume of data that we’re tracking, we had to reduce the aggregation frequency in order to keep things sprightly. Expect data to update approximately every 10-15 minutes.
• OSM Stats API: OSM Stats API now supports some additional queries and options, not all of which are documented yet but will be in the coming days.
• OSM Stats Workers: OSM Stats Workers was almost completely rewritten; metric calculations have been simplified and stream handling made more robust.

I’m almost home after three week field mapping trip to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. The mapping is part of the American Red Cross’ West Africa Border Mapping project. We hope to verify the location of around 6,000 villages and detail map large portions of 15km of either side of the Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea borders. We are building off of the wonderful work done by HOT volunteers during the ebola crisis. This project is the largest Missing Maps project started to date. Field mapping is always a fun activity and is at the heart of mapping in OSM. Field Mapping is the important verification of the great work done by remote mappers around the world. Most Missing Maps projects have a field mapping component and we are constantly working to improve our methods, build local mapping capacity, and spread the OSM gospel. For this project we are planning on engaging over 200 volunteers to learn how to map in OSM.

Mapping 6,000 villages over an area roughly the size of West Virginia (for the Americans) or a tiny bit smaller than Switzerland (for the non-Americans) in just 6 months requires some deep thought about the technology that we will use. I’ve previously posted about how we are developing Portable OSM to help us map offline. This post however is about all of the amazing hardware and software we use that we did not develop. We of course put everything in handy Pelican cases for safety while traveling and to keep everything in one piece.

Software

OSMAnd

OSMAnd is one of the foundations of our mobile mapping. While OSMAnd takes a little extra training to use effectively it has all the features we need in one app.

BaseMap

There is no better way to quickly make and view an offline map of OSM than using OSMAnd. We create new basemaps all the time using the great HOT Export Tool.

GPX Tracker

Yes there are a bunch of other great GPX trackers out there and some are easier to use but having a basemap + GPX tracker is easy for our volunteers to learn and sufficient for our needs.

Directions

We use OSMAnd extensively in the field for directions and routing. Finding the shortest/fastest route is two or three clicks. Our disaster relief teams used OSMAnd during the Typhoon Haiyan and Nepal Earthquake responses. We got great feedback from teams that used it every day to distribute relief supplies after only one 15 min training.

OpenDataKit

Our go to survey data collection tools. ODK is super fast and easy to learn both for mappers and survey managers. We loved ODK so much we built OpenMapKit on top of it.

OpenSignal

We are experimenting with OpenSignal right now to see if we can build good enough cell coverage maps of our project areas. All phones are set to share the data with OpenSignal and save the data locally so we can extract it and create our own maps.

Hardware

Mobile Phone

A couple years ago we made the decision driven by efficient project budgeting to not use both dedicated GPS devices and cell phones. Initially we used Samsung S3/S4 phones. These were ok and we have to replace a lot of phones because of poor GPS reception. For our West Africa mapping project we didn’t need 15-20 phones like a normal trip but instead needed 120+ phones that will be used almost daily for the next six months. After a little bit of internet research we discovered the Blu Bold. The Blu Bold is roughly $60 on Amazon and has all the features we need in a phone. We tested them in the last two weeks are impressed both by the build quality and the ruggedness of a “cheap” phone. I’m even considering one for my own personal phone after this trip.

Power Bank

Using mobiles phones in the field is amazing…until you run out of battery. To keep this from happening to our field teams we give everyone an external power bank capable of charging their phones several times over. We use the Anker Estro E5. It is a great price point with tons of capacity. Volunteers are then able to leave their power bank overnight in a charging station without risking their phone getting lost or stolen.

Garmin Virb Cameras

Just over a year ago we started experimenting with Mapillary to see if we could effectively use photos to both help our mapping and tell the story of the communities better. Since then we logged hundreds of miles and thousands of photos uploaded to Mapillary from walks through neighborhoods in Haiti to drives through vulnerable communities in Zimbabwe. We experimented with both GoPros and Garmin cameras and settled on the Garmin Virb as the camera for us. The built in GPS with track recording makes uploading photo to Mapillary super easy. Mapillary heard about our project and kindly donated 19 Garmin Virb cameras. We’ve put these cameras to good use already capturing roughly a thousand miles of road in the past 2 weeks. We’ve put the cameras on both motobikes and cars and have captured some stunning photos that really make it feel like you are driving down the small paths with us.

In 2014 Missing Maps came into being we realized that we needed a website. On a layover, flying back from field mapping in Africa, I built up the first iteration of the Missing Maps website. It served us well and was great to share our mission and introduce a new generation of mappers to OSM and HOTOSM. However, after a few months we realized we needed a much stronger platform for the project.

Keeping volunteers engaged between disasters is a key focus for humanitarian organizations around the world. Remotely training a large pool of extremely diverse volunteers requires time, proper tools, and coordination. A disaster is not the time to start the process. Instead, it is imperative to have a large body of well-coordinated volunteers that are ready to assist when a disaster occurs. Part of the Missing Maps engagement strategy is to create tools that will help us identify new mappers with little experience and effectively engage them to commit more time and become long term experienced OSM volunteers who are eventually able to build their own local OSM communities.

Due to the diversity of Missing Maps volunteers, we are able to access a large pool of potential volunteers whose wealth of local knowledge enables them to help map areas that are often overlooked, thereby building stronger communities. The Missing Maps partners have years of experience recruiting and engaging volunteers. A key part of volunteer management is rewarding volunteers for their experience.

As Missing Maps grew we realized that our way of tracking users (excel) and mapping metrics wasn’t good enough to effectively manage and reward volunteers. Pascal Neis graciously built a page summarizing all contributions of Missing Maps (7000+) to date. While very useful as a tracking tool for the overall project it was never intended or capable of tracking individual volunteers as they progressed and became better mappers. Pascal’s great work did put us on the right path to think about what we could do to better understand Missing Maps mappers and OSM mappers in general. As some research has shown Missing Maps volunteers are highly engaged and have a high retention rate compared to regular OSM and HOT contributors. We leaned into this by thinking through some way we could effectively encourage more people to map a 2nd and 3rd time. Missing Maps volunteers now have their own user page where they can see and earn badges for various mapping and volunteer activities. We also created a leaderboard so users can track where they are for various projects and programs can identify and reward their best mappers more easily.

Last summer we received funding from the Cisco foundation to create an OSM volunteer tracking tool to allow us to both reward volunteers but to identify the best and brightest to receive additional training and mentoring to become local champions and event hosts. Working with Development Seed for the past few months we pioneered a new way to track users participation to Missing Maps and HOT. I’ll leave the technical details to them to explain but I think we’ve arrived at a good solution not just for Missing Maps potentially OSM as a whole. At the moment metrics are only being captured for hashtags mentioning Missing Maps. Once we work out some of the kinks it is our intention to support all hashtags for OSM in the future.

As always with work completed by the Red Cross and Missing Maps all the source code is available under an open license on github.

I wanted to give a special thanks to the many volunteers that have already pointed out bugs, made suggestions, and submitted pull requests. Missing Maps is an open collaboration and we value volunteer time and support.

The American Red Cross GIS Team is constantly looking for new ways to improve our workflows and learn from the OpenStreetMap and FOSS4G communities. I’m proud to say that 95% of the GIS analysis and map making we do is done using FOSS4G tools.

A couple of years ago we realized that to be effective consumers of OSM data and FOSS4G software we would need to start contributing and developing ourselves.

In the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan we identified a need for a better OSM field data collection tool that could work with structured surveys. Eventually we created OpenMapKit with initial seed money from USAID Global Development Lab. We have used OpenMapKit in several Missing Maps field mapping missions last year in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Bangladesh. During these field trials we noticed that we were continually in need of an OMK compatible server that did not rely on connected cloud services. Due to the remoteness of our mapping locations we also needed to have better ways to interact and edit OSM in a disconnected way for days and potentially weeks at a time.

This fall, thanks to the Page Family Foundation, we began work on our largest and most ambitious mapping project to date. Over the next year we will map 15km on either side of the Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia borders (large PNG). This area was well mapped extensively by remote mappers during the Ebola crisis but lacks ground truthed data such as identifying hospitals, schools, churches, and other POIs. As part of this project we will establish a mapping hub in Guéckédou and develop the software and hardware tools that we need.

A couple weeks ago I joined the awesome folks from SpatialDev and Stamen in Seattle for a week of brainstorming and hacking. During the week we outlined and architected Portable OSM (POSM). As part of the project we are helping make several improvements to Field Papers and OpenMapKit as well as introducing a new lightweight OMK Server based on SimpleODK. POSM will hopefully be a very affordable (sub $300) solution to many problems for us including offline OSM API, OMK Server, and Offline Field Papers.

The project is being developed in the open on github and we are open to feedback and help.

The entire Missing Maps team hasn’t had a chance to get together since the HOT Summit when most of our planned meetings were cut short due to the Nepal Earthquake. This past week we finally gathered in person in Toronto, Canada for a few days of planning and strategic thinking.

The powwow kicked off with a wonderful mapathon hosted by MSF Canada. 60 new mappers joined the Missing Maps project and helped map parts of South Kivu.

Over the course of the three days we discussed several topics:

• Welcoming new members CartONG and Netherlands Red Cross,
• How to better support HOT,
• Updates and upgrades to tools such as the Tasking Manager,
• Planning for OSM Geo Week and #100Mapathons,
• Planning for Missing Maps 1 year anniversary,
• Missing Maps website changes and updates,
• Update on Missing Maps and HOT by the numbers from @dekstop,
• Sharing member organizations plans for the upcoming year, and
• Identifying potential new members and partners.

The discussions were sometimes heated and always passionate. Throughout the three days I was constantly overwhelmed by the group around the table. One of the ethics of Missing Maps is to always put people first. This people first ethic strongly ties our little rag tag group together ensuring that Missing Maps will have a bright future for years to come.

Today I had the first of three “office hours” on HOT’s Mumble channel. I was glad that a few people stopped by and I was able to answer a some questions. Very happy to hear voices and connect them with names. I even had a chance to talk with Russ about the activation curriculum. Below are a couple of the highlights from that discussion.

What is the role of regional/local HOT, ie. HOT South America?

I do believe that HOT should be doing everything it can to empower and assist local OSM groups. OSM is great in that the local mapper always supersedes the remote mapper. I think building local communities should follow this same parallel. OSM communities should be driven by local needs and desires but can be supported from remote partners or HOT.

Thinking about this a little more I would add that I don’t think we should have a HOT South America, or a HOT Africa. OSM is the larger project that binds us together. Our goal of HOTties is not to setup local HOT organizations but to empower locals to map their communities and engage and collaborate on the map of the world. HOT should work closely with OSMF to fund grants community grants for equipment and other resources. This will allow HOT to train and mentor mappers to map features for humanitarian use while the larger OSM community goes about its normal business as it does in most of the world.

What is the most important thing for HOTs future?

The most important thing for HOT is to secure long term unrestricted funding. Unrestricted funding will allow HOT to employ more and better staff, engage in projects on its own, and have more control of its own strategic vision. Unrestricted funds for HOT will allow it the financial stability to focus on key growth areas and areas in need of a little love. The Hewlett Grant is amazing in that it allowed HOT to pick its own priorities. This type of grant does not happen very often. HOT was wise to choose the activation curriculum as one these priorities and the benefits are already being seen in the great work the Activation Working Group is doing. This type of work allows HOT to codify and set its standards for handling the next big disaster. There should be more of these efforts.

Do you see HOT participating more in economic development projects.

HOT should participate in more economic development projects. HOT does great work right now in several resilience projects. Partnering with GFDRR and the World Bank in Africa and Asia. While these projects were not explicitly about economic development they have created local economies around OSM. For example GFDRR’s work in Kathmandu a couple years ago lead to the creation of Kathmandu Living Labs creating jobs and establishing a local OSM community for HOT to work with during the recent Nepal Earthquake activation.

I’ll be online again Wednesday and Thursday from 10 am eastern to noon. I look forward to hearing from more of you. As always feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any questions.

HOT is still at a pivotal time in its growth. We haven’t fully put the events the past few board elections behind us. The old debates of what a ‘HOT project’ is versus what is HOT, the role and responsibilities of the board, and silly conflicts, still go on. HOT must grow out of this current adolescent phase if it is to become truly successful and sustainable. HOT is and will always be a mapping NGO. However, to get HOT to where it needs to be, it needs to be about more than skilled mappers and dedicated activators. HOT needs to improves its fundraising, administration, and visioning to become an accountable organization. I know that there has been some resistance to HOT growing as an organization and that there are those members that see HOT the NGO as being different from the HOT community. I understand the resistance but disagree, HOT the NGO and HOT the community should be the same thing for a variety of reasons, most importantly fundraising. More partners are counting on our work both during activations and normal times.

In my day-to-day professional life as the GIS lead for the American Red Cross, I work a lot with HOT, local OSM communities, governments, other NGOs, and private corporations to strengthen and build OSM communities. I’ve lead Red Cross GIS teams during several responses over the last couple of years including, Typhoon Haiyan, West Africa Ebola Outbreak, Malawi Floods, Typhoon Pam, and the recent Nepal Earthquake. When I asked the British Red Cross, HOT, and Medicine Sans Frontiers to come together to create the Missing Maps project, all jumped at the chance because of how much they like and support HOT. Missing Maps is a huge accomplishment for HOT. It allows HOT to engage with new stakeholders, local communities, and donors to accomplish HOT’s work. I’ve worked hard since joining the non-profit sector to lend my hand at strengthening HOT: founding Missing Maps, building technology to enable our work (Tasking Manager v2, OpenMapKit, OSM-Meta-API), fundraising for various projects, helping host and plan the first ever HOT Summit, representing HOT and Missing Maps to the media and at conferences, and working behind the scenes in the humanitarian sector to lead the adoption and use of OSM by humanitarian organizations.

My vision for HOT is a continuation and evolution of its current path. I want HOT to have a solid financial foundation that supports both technology and field projects, HOT helps guide other humanitarian organizations to adopt and use OSM, and the old animosities are replaced with a renewed passion and dedication to help HOT grow.

The key areas that I will focus on if elected to the board include:

• Governance: Build upon the momentum created by existing HOT staff and working groups to manage and maintain the governance structures within HOT. This especially includes strengthening the rules around conflicts of interests and holding members and board members accountable or their actions.
• Overhaul Board Terms of Reference: The existing HOT Board is required to oversee the daily management of HOT and does not have enough time to focus on creating and implementing a longer term vision. I will work to empower HOT staff to take a more active part in the daily decision-making process in line with how other NGOs function.
• Partnerships: It is imperative that HOT build better partnerships before disasters. One of the main reasons the American Red Cross uses OpenStreetMap is due to the relationship built prior to, rather than during, a disaster. Pre-established relationships can strengthen the broader applications of HOT to other actors. I will develop and strengthen partnerships with humanitarian relief organizations so that OSM and HOT are embedded into their business operations.
• Fundraising: HOT needs to secure unrestricted funding to support long term projects, technical infrastructure, and increased staff. Many organizations depend on HOT during times of crisis and even during normal operations.
• OSMF: HOT should work to strengthen OSM Foundation to support the underlying infrastructure that it relies on. This includes helping OSMF establish more OSM chapters around the world.

During the normal election last year it was pointed out that I will have some Conflicts of Interest in my role as the GIS Lead for American Red Cross and as a potential board member. First let me state that I will be the first one to acknowledge those conflicts and excuse myself from those conversations. Yes my work overlaps a lot with HOT’s day to day. That is a good thing. It shows that partners such as the Red Cross value and care for the HOT community. While ARC has given HOT money in the past for a few small projects the real value of our contribution to HOT is in staff time. I have given tons of personal and work time to supporting HOT. The folks at ARC are very proud to be HOTties, we enjoy making things possible that would otherwise been very difficult such as the HOT Summit. As I have stated before I will recuse myself from any discussions concerning financial matters with HOT and ARC or Missing Maps. This follows not only good board practices but existing ARC and HOT rules.

I will be available on Mumble Monday (7/22 11am-12pm), Wednesday (7/24 10am-12pm), and Thursday (7/25 10am-12pm) USA Eastern Time Zone if you would like to stop by and ask me any questions. I encourage Pierre to be available during the same time so you can ask us both any questions you might have.

This election asks you to make a difficult choice. HOT could remain a small volunteer organization, run by individuals whose work with donors and international agencies—while well meaning—will be around small projects. It could remain mired in the politics of similar small NGOs, where debates over small issues keep the organization from focusing on growing. Or HOT could blossom into its full potential, with a board composed of professional mappers, humanitarians, fund-raisers, and leaders. HOT could scale to offer far more communities a wider range of services than we can now perform with our small base of trainers. I want to help HOT grow. I have the background, network, and management skills to contribute to that vision. It’s your choice. More debates or more impact.

American Red Cross

I work full time for the American Red Cross where I lead the GIS team. We work around the world and frequently have contact with HOT and other organizations throughout our work. We work closely with HOT during disaster response to prioritize and plan activations. I often talk about HOT or about HOT’s perspective in my work with government agencies, corporations, and other non-governmental agencies.

In the past I have worked to give money to HOT for collaborative technology projects such as the Tasking Manager Upgrade. HOT is currently under contract to the American Red Cross support the development of OpenMapKit.

I serve as a de facto liaison between the Missing Maps project and the US Department of State Humanitarian Information Unit given my physical proximity to the HIU. I help coordinate imagery requests from the project and often create tasks on the tasking manager for Missing Maps.

I am frequently interviewed by the media in my role at the American Red Cross and often speak on behalf of the larger humanitarian mapping community which includes HOT.

Missing Maps

I co-founded the Missing Maps project with the British Red Cross, MSF, and HOT. I co-wrote the Memorandum of Understanding that explicitly outlines that member organizations must donate a defined part of all donor raised funds to HOT to ensure HOTs economic viability. Missing Maps is the only instance where I oversee any funds that are given to HOT for operations. The HOT Board approved and signed the MOU in 2014.

As I have stated before I will recuse myself from any discussions concerning financial matters with HOT and ARC. This follows not only good board practices but existing ARC and HOT rules.

My HOT journey and story really starts with the State of the Map US conference a few years ago. I had just started working for the American Red Cross and was asked to talk about how and why we use OpenStreetMap. At the conference, I had the pleasure of meeting Mikel, Schuyler, Russ, and many other passionate HOT folks. Six months later, I was fully embedded and accepted into HOT, working very closely with Andrew Buck and Pierre Beland to provide the NGO perspective for the Typhoon Haiyan activation. In the weeks and months to follow, I learned of the tremendous passion and dedication that all HOT people have for the organization, the work, and the continued success of HOT.

It is with that same passion that I ask for your nomination to the HOT Board. HOT is still at a pivotal time in its growth. We haven’t fully put the events the past few board elections behind us. The old debates of what a ‘HOT project’ is versus what is HOT, still go on. HOT must grow out of this current adolescent phase if it is to become truly successful and sustainable. HOT is and will always be a mapping NGO. However, to get HOT to where it needs to be, it needs to be about more than skilled mappers and dedicated activators. HOT needs to improves its fundraising, administration, and visioning to become a sustainable organization. I know that there has been some resistance to HOT growing as an organization and that there are those members that see HOT the NGO as being different from the HOT community. I understand the resistance but disagree, HOT the NGO and HOT the community should be the same thing for a variety of reasons, most importantly fundraising.

In my day-to-day professional life as the GIS lead for the American Red Cross, I am constantly talking, bragging, and honing the work that HOT does. When the American Red Cross asked other organizations to come together to create the Missing Maps project, we did so because of how much we like and support HOT. Missing Maps is a huge accomplishment for HOT. It allows HOT to engage with new stakeholders, local communities, and donors to accomplish HOT’s work. I’ve worked hard since joining the non-profit sector to lend my hand at strengthening HOT: founding Missing Maps, building technology to enable our work (Tasking Manager 2, OpenMapKit, OSM-Meta-API), fundraising for various projects, helping host and plan the upcoming HOT Summit, and generally working behind the scenes in the humanitarian sector to lead the adoption and use of OSM by humanitarian organizations.

My vision for HOT is a continuation and evolution of its current path. I want HOT to have a solid financial foundation that supports both technology and field projects, HOT helps guide other humanitarian organizations to adopt and use OSM, and the old animosities are replaced with a renewed passion and dedication to help HOT grow.

The key areas that I will focus on if elected to the board include:

• Governance: Build upon the momentum created by existing HOT staff and working groups to manage and maintain the governance structures within HOT.
• Overhaul Board Terms of Reference: The existing HOT Board is required to oversee the daily management of HOT and does not have enough time to focus on creating and implementing a longer term vision. I will work to empower HOT staff to take a more active part in the daily decision-making process in line with how other NGOs function.
• Partnerships: It is imperative that HOT build better partnerships before disasters. One of the main reasons the American Red Cross uses OpenStreetMap is due to the relationship built prior to, rather than during, a disaster. Pre-established relationships can strengthen the broader applications of HOT to other actors. I will develop and strengthen partnerships with humanitarian relief organizations so that OSM and HOT are embedded into their business operations.
• Fundraising: HOT needs to create an endowment to support long term projects, technical infrastructure, and increased staff. Many organizations depend on HOT during times of crisis and even during normal operations.

During my time at the American Red Cross I’ve had the privilege of working directly with a number of the members. I’ve also had the privilege of seeing the HOT’s work first hand being used to alleviate suffering after Typhoon Haiyan and heard stories and reports from many humanitarians that depend on HOT to do their work for the West Africa Ebola outbreak and from many other activations. I want to see that HOT keeps being able to make others work that 1 percent easier.

Thank you for your time supporting HOT and for your consideration.