My 214 Mapping Days of 2021

At the beginning of the year 2021, one of my targets was to upload a changeset at least every day until the end of the year. However, I have not managed to hit my target. Nevertheless, this year still emerges the year with my highest number of contribution days.

With my GIS background, contributing to OpenStreetMap has become one of my hobbies because the efforts invested in adding features to the map are reflected in the number of humanitarian challenges that are being solved through the availability of Open Spatial Data. Amidst all the challenges like low internet connectivity, expensive data bundles, limited access to digital devices, and others, the inspiration is derived from the support and opportunities that the OpenStreetMap Uganda and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) has provided to the OSM Communities in Uganda. We appreciate.

My SOTMA Experience:

Earlier this year, I submitted my proposal to speak at the State of the Map Africa Virtual conference and I was so much excited when my proposal was accepted and given an opportunity to speak at the conference. To be honest, the year has been full of excitement, learning, contributions but also sharing information on what the OpenStreetMap Uganda Community has been doing over the past years. The OpenStreetMap Uganda Community gave me an opportunity to spearhead a number of community-driven projects and, at the same time to share with the rest of the world what we have achieved through those projects by presenting at the State of the Map Africa Conference. Besides the opportunity to present the Remote Mapping & Photo Mapping New Cities project, I also participated in a number of lightning talks at the HOT Summit and organized a watch party in Kampala where the rest of the community members were able to stream the conference on the big screen.

I have been able to learn a lot from the presentations from the different speakers and copied a number of ideas that will be scaled to fit my community. A lot of thanks to the organizing committee of the State of the Map Africa conference, and all the partners that contributed to making SOTMA 2021 a successful conference.