8 September, 1:30 PM, and a dream near to become true, the plane with just 100 meters from the ground offer a great view of Miami, inner lakes, width streets and suddenly the airport, just immigration process left to be part of this wonderful world conference. I just receive another surprise (based on information of the –well know– process); I feel very welcome to the US, immigration officer have a kind treatment and in just one hour since landing I was running trough airport sections to reach D one and get my connection to Denver.

At 8:00 PM I was in International Denver Airport, take the Super Shuttle reserved by OSM that carry me to Comfort Inn Hotel, so just take a relax anxious for starting next day.

Meet the conference
Just 10 minutes walk from hotel and I was sitting hearing keynote of Richard Weait from Canada. Since this moment start for me this amazing experience called “State of the Map”, there was people near to 40 countries, each one of the with interesting stories, ideas, projects, knowledge, contacts, methodologies, etc. For first time in my life (like OMS mapper) I feel be heard, doesn't sound strange (or idealistic) express ideas to create a geo-alarm networks by SMS to be published into a Ushahidi instance ¿which is the better protocol to has a correct verification? ¿who can support us in Colombia for a possible project? I ask all the time for aerial imagery. I met with another person from Colombia “el hermano colombiano” who was mapping in Afghanistan! Know about institutions that work for a better articulation in crisis situation (before, during and after); that there are a grate, a giant efforts to map in Indonesia; India is developing his own mapping infrastructure; Tunisia government now impulse mapping activities with OSM community; Argentina is getting stronger his community and scientific activities are carried in Philippines with OSM data.

I mean, this is just a part of the richness founded into the map conference, I think this is just starting, we have to focus in data quality, one of my ideas (plus “gamification” and automation task) is to incorporate OSM map knowledge into local universities, that is a task that I already started and will follow.

In my next entry I'll talk about conclusions after the SotM 2011.