Dear HOT members

Thank you for taking the time to read my candidate statement. I’d like to take this opportunity to outline my previous involvement with HOT (and the broader mapping community), experience to date and outline particular areas of interest which I believe may be beneficial to the broader community.

But first, I’d like to thank Melanie Eckle for the kind nomination and her guidance in the run up to making the decision to run for the Board. I’d also like to thank the others from the community who’ve fielded questions and offered support as I’ve explored putting myself forward

Why HOT

I firmly believe in the power of people and technology to drive positive social change. As such, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to spend several years working around the world on various ‘Tech for Good’/ ICT4D projects, alongside good people doing incredible things. However, there have been frustrations. Too many times I’ve seen organisations inform rather than involve communities in the solutions, resulting in poor solutions - most worrying is that (with good intentions) they often implement solutions which were deemed ‘good enough’ for the community where it was implemented, but wouldn’t be upto the standards the implementers demand themselves. I’ve also seen communities disempowered more broadly through the type of engagement and solutions escalate into costly projects which need to be maintained.

As such, when I came across HOT (via Missing Maps) I was genuinely inspired by the following:

• Community centric - people are upskilled and empowered, but how these skills are used is driven by the community themselves, allowing them to spend their time where it’s most valuable
• Volunteer led - a unique culture built on passion and which due to it’s nature must put volunteers at the heart (one of the reasons I joined the Red Cross as this is a core principle)
• Equity of solution - this isn’t another ‘Tech4Good’ solution built on good intentions, OSM is a robust, leading solution used around the world
• Efficient - the passion of volunteers enablers mechanisms such as the microgrants to have impact which far outweighs the associated funding machinery of many other organisations I’ve worked with
• Agility - baked into the core of the model due to the structure of HOT

I recognise that HOT is on a journey and isn’t perfect, but these are fantastic foundations for social impact.

Involvement with the mapping community

I first became aware of HOT when I attended the first Missing Maps Mapathon in London, November 2014. Following this, I returned to work and (alongside Rebecca Firth) helped to set up a mapping community at Accenture - we started with an initial 80 person mapathon and went on to hold events as large as 900 people in London (alongside Ivan Gayton and Pete Masters) and went on to work with Rebecca to build a mapping community of over 3,500 people within the company, across the globe who contributed to HOT’s work - short video here. We also helped create training and communications/promotional videos for use in the HOT community.

Building on the work, establishing the mapping community at Accenture, in 2017 I was asked to facilitate the HOT Board Meeting (where I first met Melanie) in Ottawa in addition to supporting the Missing Maps community meeting. This provided a unique insight into the key priorities, challenges and opportunities for the organisation and the workings of the Board.

Following this I went on to support HOT as part of the HOT Microgrant Review Panel in both 2018 and 2019. Again, this was an inspirational and insightful experience and a privilege I took very seriously given the great impact the various groups were having in their communities and the transformative potential of the grants. In fact, at my wedding last year my wife and I even used it as an opportunity to fundraise for HOT - which also gave me a platform to share my passion with friends and family.

Experience outside HOT/Mapping

Outside of my work with the mapping community I spent several years working with various iNGOs across the global south (East Africa, Latin America, South East Asia) as the Digital and Innovation Lead for Accenture Development Partnerships. Particular highlights include the ‘Digital Birth Registration’ project looking to improve government data in East Africa (now called OpenCRVS), as well as helping to set up innovation capabilities within large iNGOs.

Last year I joined the British Red Cross as the Director of Digital and Innovation which includes the GIS department (a Missing Maps partner alongside HOT), enabling me to stay close to the mapping community and advocate for more support for open data/mapping in the sector. It has also allowed me to work on driving positive change within a large, dispersed community of staff and volunteers.

This range of experience allows me to augment my understanding of HOT (through my roles as corporate partner, NGO partner, microgrants reviewer etc.) with my broader knowledge of Tech4Good and experience of working within large iNGOs on transformation initiatives (as well as supporting fundraising, corporate partnerships, training etc.).

What I would like to achieve if elected

• Continue to extend capabilities to maximise impact e.g. advocacy/communications support for communities
• Explore new opportunities to use technology in ways which drive impact inline with the community’s expectations
• Invest time supporting fundraising/partnership opportunities to support the community/organisation
• Look at how best to support the global community (and partners) to advocate for HOT (and fundraise where appropriate) to increase impact
• Building on my discussions with existing members and staff I believe there is an opportunity to improve core capabilities within the organisation and am passionate about drawing on experience in similar organisations (and my network) to support this.

Please note that I firmly believe that the board needs to meet the needs of community so please take the above as an initial starting point.

Managing potential conflict of interest

I would also like to state that given my role as a Director of the British Red Cross (a fellow Missing Map partner organisation) there may be questions about conflict of interest (especially regarding funding). Please note, I am well aware of this, but after discussing it with current board members, staff, members and the British Red Cross GIS Team I’ve received unanimous support that this wasn’t seen as an issue and is most likely a benefit given the insight it provides and potential relationships within the sector. That said, similar to other board members (past and present) from Missing Maps partner organisations, this will remain top of mind and I will work with the organisation and membership to flag any potential conflicts of interest which arise and remove myself from discussions/working groups as appropriate.

I would love this opportunity to help further the work of the HOT community and advocate for the great work it does and look forward to discussing my application further with you

Many thanks

Adam