The journey of OpenStreetMap community is a perfect example of community volunteerism approach. Despite any structural funding the community made it’s own mark in the global humanitarian arena. The continuous support from HOT, MissingMaps & recently Mapillary boosted the enthusiasm of the community and inspired them to go far beyond.

However, in recent times the necessity is felt to give the community a organizational structure. Keeping this on mind most recently a group of very active and experienced members of the OSMBD community has just formed an OSM based innovation lab BHOOT (Bangladesh Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Operations team).

The main objective is to make the OSMBD community more active & vibrant and lead the community towards sustainable future. It’s not yet been started as an registered organization but there are plannings on that. The team have been preparing the plans to conduct a full scale field mapping in a disaster pruned area of Bangladesh. The team has already initiated a project in Belkuchi area of Sirajganj district and planning for a street mapping project for the whole Dhaka Metropolitan.

The plans for both of the projects includes but not limited to creating a detailed base map of the areas, develop an data collection application tool for OSM field mapping, integrating Mapillary street level photos to the map and conducting some field level researches.