rphyrin's Diary

State of the Map 2026 (Day 1 - Part 1)

Posted by rphyrin on 30 August 2026 in English. Last updated on 31 August 2026.

The first time I became aware of the very existence of the “State of the Map” event was, I think, around 2022.

At that time, it was held in Italy. I think I heard about it somewhere online. All I remember is the group photo of the participants (there were plenty of people there) and the beautiful, cool-looking SotM 2022 logo.

That year, I had just recently graduated, so I could get involved in the OpenStreetMap movement more intensely than I had in the years before (before that, I usually only actively mapped during college holiday seasons. Once the holiday was over, I didn’t map anymore). That’s why at that time I started interacting with the community more, and eventually learned about this “State of the Map” event.

Even though I still don’t remember exactly where I first received the news about the event.

At that time, my first reaction was, “I don’t think I’m able to commute farther than either Jakarta or Bandung.” So, back then, I thought, “I don’t think I’m able to visit Italy.”

Fast-forward to after 2022. I gave several technical and/or philosophical talks about OSM sporadically, mostly online. From a technical standpoint, I talked about things like “how to map,” “how to use this particular tool,” or “introducing a tool that I recently built.” From a philosophical standpoint, I talked about ideas and dreams about “how the OSM platform should evolve in the future,” “how we should organize the people in the OSM movement,” etc., etc.

I finally had a chance to attend an OSM-related meeting physically, rather than online, for the first time around 2025. In this case, it was still within the boundaries that I had defined back in 2022 (Jakarta), so I was able to go.

In the same year, 2025, the global SotM was held in Manila. Relative to the rest of the cities on Earth, Manila is quite close to where I live, but still, “I don’t think I’m able to commute farther than either Jakarta or Bandung.” So I passed on it again. But at least I sent my poster there, which became my first-ever contribution to SotM.

Also, in the same year, 2025, I became pretty involved in the day-to-day editing of WeeklyOSM. There, I saw plenty of news submissions about SotM events all over the world, not just the yearly global SotM, but also region-specific SotM events. There were so many of them, but I don’t think I ever saw one being held in Jakarta and/or Bandung. So there went my chance to participate.

Then, on 30 July 2026 at 8:24 pm, I received an email from HOT. I only read it later, around 31 July 2026 at 1:50 pm. They were offering 100 free online tickets (GBP 10.00, including 20% UK VAT). Without any hesitation, I quickly filled out the registration form.

I assumed that these 100 tickets would be given on a “first come, first served” basis. And considering how late I was checking my inbox (for the sake of my own mind, I had decided to turn off notifications, but I still regularly checked my email at a specific time every day), I was quite afraid that I was already way too late to the party.

The registration form was sent. And all I could do was wait. If I failed to get the ticket, then it was what it was.

Then, on 20 August 2026 at 6:12 am, I received an email from the SotM Working Group:

“Hello, a ticket for State of the Map 2026 has been ordered for you. You can view the details and status of your ticket here. Best regards, Your State of the Map 2026 team.”

Alright. Cool. This was going to be my first SotM ever in my whole life.

On that same day, I immediately read through the programme page thoroughly.

There were plenty of parallel sessions, so I needed to plan ahead and decide which room I should go to at a certain time. I picked the topics based on my personal interests, while prioritizing attending all the “lightning talks” (I didn’t know the exact topics of those talks, but well, surprise me. I hoped I would feel lucky enough to stumble upon some interesting talks there).

Sometimes there were two topics that I liked equally, but they were running in parallel at the same time. I still marked both of them, just in case. Maybe I’ll go to the other room once this session is over. Maybe I’ll switch back and forth between them. I don’t know. Let’s see how it goes.

And on the same day (20 August 2026), I published that plan in this OSM Diary.

While researching the programme, I also learned that there was a Telegram group for all SotM 2026 participants. I joined it.

Inside that group, apparently someone had also made “country-specific groups” for SotM 2026 participants. That gave me the idea to make a specific group for people who attended this event through HOT’s free-ticket programme. Maybe we could talk in depth about the talks being presented, or network with each other.

From 20 August to 28 August, it was about one week. So during that time, I basically did nothing except wait in excitement.

So let’s just skip the story ahead to 28 August, the first day.

Alright. Timezone issues.

In Paris, the event started in the morning at 9:30 am, followed by the morning coffee break (10:40–11:15), lunch break (13:00–14:30), afternoon coffee break (16:15–16:45), and finally the end of the day’s programme at around 17:55++.

If this schedule is overlaid onto my own personal schedule and timezone, the event starts at 14:30 and ends around midnight. The mandatory breaks that I need to take are around 15:00–15:30 and 18:00–19:30. And the plan that I drafted beforehand didn’t actually take this into consideration. So I just had to improvise along the way.

Not to mention that there might be other “unexpected circumstances IRL” where I might not be able to access my laptop and attend a talk.

On that day (28 August), I opened my laptop at around 14:00, 30 minutes before the actual event started.

There was quite a lot of activity in the SotM Telegram group, so to kill time during those 30 minutes, I read through the chat one message at a time.

I learned that people were using trains to reach Paris from Toulouse, Marseille, Düsseldorf, etc. Meanwhile, among the people who had already reached Paris, they were discussing the arrival train station (Paris Austerlitz), the hotels they were staying at (mostly in noisy, near the SotM venue), and the location of the pre-event social event (Ground Control, also near Austerlitz).

I identified all the place names that were mentioned in the Telegram group, then put the coordinates of each place into LocationPad as a quick personal pet project, just to kill time while waiting for the event.

From the Telegram group, I learned that Paris had been raining the night before the event, and that “there has been some disruption to the RER C due to trees falling.” I also learned that registration started at 8:15 Paris time.

I jumped onto the Venueless platform at 14:30 (my local time). The chat room on the Venueless platform is quite crowded with people introducing themselves. I noticed at least 21 people introducing themselves, from Scotland, London, Brazil, Bangladesh, Nepal, Madagascar, Nigeria, and Zambia. The event finally started at around 14:43.

I encountered some severe connection issues at this point, so I failed to watch it uninterrupted. I only managed to get glimpses of it at particular times before the video got stuck again. I guess my own unstable internet connection was to blame here.

Here are the glimpses that I managed to watch:

14:48: Notice about the Code of Conduct (https://2026.stateofthemap.org/codeofconduct/) and information about the venue (https://2026.sotm.org/venue).

14:48: “Group photo. Join us on Saturday at 14h20 at the main hall stairs for the traditional SotM group photo!”