In follow-up to my last post: HOT 2014 Review, here is a brief post regarding my aspirations for 2015.

Continued contribution to mapping

• I’d like to increase my HOT mapping activities throughout 2015, contributing to more projects, and contributing more significant task content in those projects.
• Continued and increased contribution to global mapping in areas with low map detail but sufficient imagery to contribute. I’ve previously contributed significantly in Ghana and Burma and i’d like to keep up these contributions and engage with local mappers to offer assistance.

Assisting with new mapping techniques

• Enhancing before/after intelligence to HOT tasks. This could be useful for tasks in places like Gaza where there is focus on mapping change over a period of time (i.e. before & after the bombing of 2014)
• Automated feature extraction & change detection with visual checking steps. Viewed by many as an unattainable goal for OSM, but i believe there can be a certain level to be gained in OSM by these techniques. This will most likely involve Python and JavaScript libraries to create some kind of prototypical solution.

Community involvement

• Engage and assist newbie mappers in Ghana. I did some of this a few years ago, but would like to get involved again and offer any assistance i can.
• OSM Events & Conferences. I’d like to make it to and potentially present at a variety of events this year including SOTM, GeoMob, OSM London etc..

Happy New Year and good luck mapping,

Sam Larsen

The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team