Here in San José, we’ve begun importing tens of thousands of businesses from an official registry of South Bay businesses and other points of interest that are open during the COVID-19 pandemic. When we’re done, our POI coverage will look similar to this visualization:

We want you to be a part of the import effort! Go to this MapRoulette project and follow the instructions to get started. It’s a safely socially distanced activity and a small way to help the local community come out stronger after the pandemic (not just the local tech industry).

If you’ve never participated in an import before, this is a good opportunity to learn, because you can use the same editor your normally use. (For me, that’s iD.) Each challenge corresponds to a different business category, so you can pick the kind of POI you’re most comfortable mapping.

You don’t need to live in the Bay Area to participate. In fact, even mappers outside the U.S. have an interest in comprehensive POI coverage here in Silicon Valley. For better or worse, OSM’s reputation is partly based on its reputation among tech companies. Everyone evaluates a map service by searching and navigating while running errands, and tech company decisionmakers are no exception. If OSM can deliver a good experience in Silicon Valley, we’ll have more opportunities to serve people elsewhere, including in places where OSM is already a hidden gem. This import will also serve as a model for other cities to supplement their POI coverage with similar data sources.

If you have any questions or would like help getting started, please feel free to send me a message or invite yourself to OSMUS Slack’s #local-california channel. Thank you!