Edit: Responses to forum questions are following my statement

Hello HOT members,

Thanks very much for taking the time to click through, read, and consider my candidate statement for a position on the HOT Board of Directors.

My name is Rob Baker and I’m currently the Director of Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, located at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, USA. Prior to joining the team here, I was located in Washington, DC for seven years where I worked as Lead Technologist for USAID’s Global Development Lab; the World Bank’s Innovation Lab, where I ran a team on open data; a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow, where my team and I installed the agency’s first CDO and created open data policy; and was COO of Ushahidi, having started with them as a volunteer in 2010 following the Haiti earthquake.

It was in 2010 when I got involved with OSM and when HOT launched. I contributed to mapping parties in Haiti and in Indonesia, working to help train local communities on not only the practice but the value of being seen on the map. In the years since, I was proud to represent HOT at several public events and continue to champion everything from the old Field Papers to Missing Maps.

I hope that I can use my diverse, humanitarian experience to be an active advocate for HOT. My background as a technologist and coder means I understand and, more importantly, help translate technical processes, especially for non-technical audiences. I understand what it’s like working with larger institutions and bureaucracies, what constraints they have and how to navigate those policies. And my entire career is in non-profits and development work, so how our iNGO, governmental ministries, and CSOs operate in these contexts. While I have not been able to directly contribute to HOT for some time, I know this is a meaningful way I can be more involved.

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