2020.03.21

Today marks the 366th day of continuous mapping for myself. This was a personal target of mapping each and everyday and make those blank boxes fill up in http://hdyc.neis-one.org for a year. Kind of like maintaining a streak. I tried this before however after doing really great, I lost two days in the airport because I was traveling.

Next time I start the challenge I prepared for such situations. When I was traveling to India, I used OSMAND and Maps.me and the hotel WiFi to map so no days are missing. And Finally that target has been reached. And what is more, this is a leap year so I got February 29 with me and that makes it 366 days of mapping.

Here is my profile link: http://hdyc.neis-one.org/?mmahmud

Kolorob project and android based application by Save the Children in Bangladesh utilizes OpenStreetMap for its base map and has contributed in mapping 36+ wards of Dhaka City. In the beginning of the project in 2015, a number of workshop were held to teach youth editing OpenStreetMap. Shortly after, pilot areas (Bauniabadh and Paris Road area in Mirpur) were mapped. After the success of the pilot, all 15 wards of Mirpur area was mapped. I used HOT Visualize Change to demonstrate the map changes from June, 2015 to December, 2017. As the mapper for the project, I mapped from May 2016 onward for mapping the wards in Mirpur and other wards. We conducted data collection in those areas. I asked the data collectors to have their GPS turned on in their devices and instructed them to walk along every road. Thus I got GPS tracks of every road in those wards and mapped them in OSM. Here is the link to the video I made.

2018.03.18

Chinese proverb says “The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”. Well, I did not know it was my first step towards a long journey when I walked into the “Map your community” workshop arranged by Save the Children International in Bangladesh. The workshop was arranged for the “Kolorob” project, aiming to completely map two slum areas where the Kolorob app will be launched. The purpose of the app was to provide slum dwellers with necessary information so they can make informed decision. The chosen map was OpenStreetMap. In the two days workshop, I was first introduced to mapping and I got hooked.

I had no idea how maps were made, no idea about GPS, no idea about anything related to mapping. As a completely new area, it was able to grab my attention pretty tight and I started learning more about it. I was hired by “Save the Children” as a volunteer mapper in Kolorob project and I started doing field mapping using different tools. I also assisted in OSM traning and lead field mapping team for the “Data4Action” project by American Red Cross in association with Bangladesh Red Crescent and Red Cross Society.

My interest stretched out to GIS and I started learning the basics by myself. Along with my learning, I continued mapping and became an active member of the OpenStreetMap Bangladesh (OSMBD) team, which is the OSM community in Bangladesh who were actively working with OSM as it’s contributor, advocate and as a learning sharing platform.

I joined Save the Children as a Project Officer in OpenStreetMapping and as a graphic designer in the “Kolorob” project, the same project that started my OSM journey. Here I lead my team to map, collect data, take GPS track to map road network etc. Through work in professional area, my knowledge and expertise level grew a lot. I became more interested in GIS and started learning QGIS and ArcGIS. I took courses in advanced ArcGIS which helped clarifying a lot of concepts and made me aware of the numerous possibilities that GIS give access to. I also started volunteering for Tanzania Development Trust as a mapper and also as a member of the mapping group. These interactions helped me learn more and more and gave me the opportunity to expand my knowledge and understanding of OpenStreetMap.

We (me and some other members of OSM community) did not want to limit ourselves to mapping only. We wanted to use mapping and merge our other ideas together to form a group that will work for humanitarian and development purposes which ultimately will contribute to the wellbeing of our environment, society, country and our planet. So we formed Bangladesh Open Innovation Lab (BOIL) and Bangladesh Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Operational Team (BHOOT which means Ghost in Bengali, indicating the mappers behind the map whose actions are so visible, but they themselves are not) to expand our scope of work.

Data is nothing if it is not used by people. You may have thousands of data on how to improve wellbeing of your society, but if that data is not open and not used, that data amounts to nothing. That is where OSM is making the difference. The data is open here, open for anyone to use, analyze and share. This presents myriads of opportunities to create different platforms to utilize this data in sectors such as humanitarian, disaster risk reduction, environment and conservation, road and transport network etc. and even to day to day life for navigation or finding your nearest shop.

My journey continues. My mapping continues and with each step I am learning more, and realizing more of the potential that is around us. All we need to do is take the first step and the path will stretch out before us.

I recently came to know about the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and it absolutely horrified me. I learned that many young girls are cut in a “cutting season” and that starts in December in many parts of Tanzania. While this procedure is regarded as a rite of passage, this is a harmful procedure that can cause infection, cyst, urination and menstrual flow problems, infertility and death. Tanzania Development Trust is trying to help these girls by rescuing them and providing them a shelter but the problem is, Tanzania is not mapped. To reach a village that is in the middle of a vast plain is already hard and doing it without a map is near impossible. What us mappers can do is provide them with a map that can help many girls avoid this unnecessary process.

The current task is here: http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/3134#

I am mapping. Hope you will join too.

29th April, 2017

Today we held one of the biggest Mapathon in Dhaka city. A bunch of mappers came, both new and old. This was an all day event and we mapped, we trained, we learned and we became more confident and positive for our future endeavor to map out the whole Dhaka city.

OSMBD #BHOOT #Dhaka_Mapathon #HOT #Mapillary

Trying to create some video tutorials for OSM. Playlist is here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIji_jDrtHGV1NqWsI_8BhvMmaDovES5O

28th April, 2017

Well, this was a personal goal of mine to Map in every single country in the World with OpenStreetMap. Well, mapping in every country is easy so I took it upon myself to make at least 1000 changes in every country. So, today finally that goal is achieved.

I mapped in all 197 countries in the World and made at least 1000 changes (Except in Vatican City because that place is too well mapped).

Country list: https://www.countries-ofthe-world.com/all-countries.html

https://www.state.gov/misc/list/

You can check it here: http://hdyc.neis-one.org/?mmahmud

Notes:

Palestine is shown as West Bank and Gaza Strip combined.

New Caledonia and Guadeloupe are states of France.

Western Sahara is part of Morocco.

This was a very successful event for us. A lot of participants show up and we covered a lot of ground. Firstly we covered the basics for creating good maps, then we introduced MapSwipe to the mappers and then we did #2041 on HOTOSM task manager along with MapSwiping. There were new mappers there and we gave them the basic training. Pete Masters from MissingMaps joined us online. Then we had a discussion about the future steps for OSMBD. Overall, a great Mapathon success.

I live in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. It is a densely populated area to live in. Remote Mapping in Dhaka is also difficult because the imagery quality is not that great and the buildings are so dense that it is hard to separate from one another. However, I noticed that the imagery in Dhaka has two layers. Upto zoom level 18, there is one imagery that is quite clear but small to draw from. From zoom level 19, another imagery that is quite unclear, dense and sometimes covered in cloud. So I figured a way out to use the first imagery to draw from. I made a video about it. Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRTnKmbbaTo

So far, this is helping a lot. I am not sure if this trick can be used elsewhere but this is worth a try.

After about two months break, the OSM mappers got together for another Mapathon. The venue was the training room of BDRCS (Bangladesh Red Crescent Society). It was like a reunion with the old mappers with many of whom I have not met for quite a few months. I also met some new mappers, one of whom is from my own University.

We mapped the Sirajganj Sadar for a project of ADB (Asian Development Bank). We did the following tasks:

http://tasks.teachosm.org/project/215 ; http://tasks.teachosm.org/project/216

After the Mapathon, we had Iftari together. Overall it was a success.