The Bangladesh Open Innovation Lab (BOIL) and OpenStreetMap Bangladesh (OSMBD) are teaming up to host the “State of the Map Bangladesh (SotMBD) ‘2024” conference, a first of its kind in Bangladesh, a national gathering focused on mapping and geospatial technology. It aims to gather all significant stakeholders, including IM professionals, NGOs, government counterparts, industry leaders, academic experts, and geospatial enthusiasts from across the nation and the globe. This inaugural event aligns with the broader “State of the Map (SoTM)” event series facilitated by the OpenStreetMap Foundation and the global OpenStreetMap Community, reflecting a global effort to enhance open mapping initiatives. Additionally, SotMBD will be integrated into the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s (HOT) Opensummit program, emphasizing its role in fostering collaboration and sharing knowledge in the geospatial community.

Set against the breathtaking backdrop of Cox’s Bazar, the longest natural sandy sea beach in the world, the extraordinary event is set to unfold that promises to captivate and inspire. Scheduled for September 28th and 29th, 2024, this unique gathering aims to unite a diverse array of participants for a celebration of community and cooperation. The tranquil and scenic beach view will be an ideal location for an event aimed at promoting connections and creating enduring memories. Cox’s Bazar, known for its breathtaking views and lively local culture, not only serves as a location but also provides an engaging experience that enhances the atmosphere and appeal of the event. The organizers are carefully curating a program that will not only leverage the scenic beauty of the area but also underscore a commitment to inclusivity and engagement. Whether you are a local resident or a visitor from afar, this event promises an enriching experience that showcases the best of what Cox’s Bazar and Bangladesh have to offer.

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Create, Cultivate & Thrive: Are We Doing Enough?

Resilience is the ability of a community to continue to live, function, develop and thrive after a crisis. Key elements of enhancing resilience include maximizing social cohesion, collaboration, empowerment, participation and consideration of local characteristics and issues. This means dialogue within, and inputs from, the community itself. Skilled volunteers within the community are then to take the responsibility to rebuild relationships — within the community, with the external stakeholder i.e. organizations, and governments, to revive the buzz again and again, where it was left behind. These relationships form a solid foundation on which other community volunteers can create positive change, by improving their skills and abilities for better contribution. Fresh thinking is also needed more than ever because volunteers have unique attributes that make them essential and put them at the heart of the restoration process.

Like most community-based resilience volunteering, volunteering with the OpenStreetMap community is also uniquely flexible. People from all backgrounds sign up to support a wide range of initiatives, activities & organizational efforts across social, economic, health, logistics, environmental development & humanitarian crisis response by enriching open & sharable geo-data repository through the OpenStreetMap platform. We know from experience that it works as a great support in every context and adds value to every type of program, from Disaster risk reduction & response, public health, protection, wash, education, information management & logistic support, by fueling evidence-based interventions. The approach is universal and adaptable nowadays; community capacity development, operation & program management, mentoring & leadership are the key components to strengthening & sustaining activism.

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Dear all Hot Members,

First of all I would like to thank Jorieke for nominating me as a candidate. It is surely an honor for me whether I am being elected or not and it will surely encourage me to contribute my furthest best in HOT moving forward in coming days. Thanks to Pete Masters & Ahasanul Hoque for considering me & encouraging for the candidacy.

Involvement with HOT & OSM:

It has been now almost 05 years I have been walking with HOT & OSM. Supposed to be helping out in a MissingMaps piloting project as a translator, instead fell in love with mapping itself! In a very short period of time got involved in the community building process, promoting & supporting OSM based projects & initiatives in Bangladesh. I have been one of the core contacts of HOT & MissingMaps in Bangladesh for a while now. Have been granted voting membership since 2017 & being involved in several working groups. The journey has been surely an eventful one and I’m loving the ride.

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The Journey

In early 2017 a group of active members from OpenStreetMap Bangladesh Community (OSMBD) decided to form an unofficial entity BOIL (Bangladesh Open Innovation Lab) to utilize the huge & diverse potential of crowdsourced OpenStreetMap data and take the Open Data movement forward. The decision was made to coordinate the community activities in a more structured way and bring out the best from the members of this community. Immediately, BHOOT (Bangladesh Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Operations Team) was formed as a initiative of BOIL to support HOT (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team) with all their activations supporting all the disasters & emergency humanitarian crisis throughout the globe including Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh BHOOT(vut) stands for Ghost, the entity you cannot see in front of your eyes but surely can feel its presence and works. However, the group vowed to make the impact remaining behind the scene and not really bother focusing to become the poster boys of the community. And, literally they made the impact with a big bang!

Collaborating with Pathao with “Map Your City” project, leading the “South Asian Flood Activation (Bangladesh part)” by HOT, supporting “Rohingya Population Movement Mapping” by MissingMaps… 2017 was a very busy and eventful first year for the BHOOT’s. With adding more than 2 Million buildings, 2000 km roads & 150k street view images from Bangladesh region on the OpenStreetMap, surely they made the community moved & evolved. Eventually the team almost single handedly taken the size of the zipped data size of Bangladesh region from 22 MB to 93 MB in only 06 months! The humongous contribution made 05 members of the team reaching the top 10 position in Missing Maps global contributor’s leaderboard and another 15 placed in top 100 of that leaderboard!

The Community

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The journey of OpenStreetMap community is a perfect example of community volunteerism approach. Despite any structural funding the community made it’s own mark in the global humanitarian arena. The continuous support from HOT, MissingMaps & recently Mapillary boosted the enthusiasm of the community and inspired them to go far beyond.

However, in recent times the necessity is felt to give the community a organizational structure. Keeping this on mind most recently a group of very active and experienced members of the OSMBD community has just formed an OSM based innovation lab BHOOT (Bangladesh Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Operations team).

The main objective is to make the OSMBD community more active & vibrant and lead the community towards sustainable future. It’s not yet been started as an registered organization but there are plannings on that. The team have been preparing the plans to conduct a full scale field mapping in a disaster pruned area of Bangladesh. The team has already initiated a project in Belkuchi area of Sirajganj district and planning for a street mapping project for the whole Dhaka Metropolitan.

The plans for both of the projects includes but not limited to creating a detailed base map of the areas, develop an data collection application tool for OSM field mapping, integrating Mapillary street level photos to the map and conducting some field level researches.

Collection, visualization, and sharing of information on disasters and disaster risk provide a basis for strengthening disaster resilience and supporting timely post-disaster response, recovery, and reconstruction efforts. For example, base maps (identifying the location of key infrastructure, and critical assets), hazard risk maps, and evacuation maps are necessary for planning interventions related to disaster risk reduction, including activities related to disaster preparedness. Similarly, information from post-disaster damage assessment is important for guiding activities in response, recovery, and rehabilitation phases, such as rescuing affected communities, providing relief, and developing required recovery and reconstruction plans.

OpenStreetMap (OSM), a method of community-based mapping using satellite imagery and ICT tools, used to develop base maps necessary for planning and prioritizing DRM-related interventions. ICT tools such as mobile phone applications developed to support this mapping approach. OSM provides simple access to its entire database under open license, which is useful for community-based mapping and data sharing in the event of a disaster, as well as in humanitarian and international development work. Since OSM relies on the local community to develop and update detailed base maps, it has become an effective mechanism to strengthen community-based DRM.

Satellite-based damage assessment is becoming a conventional procedure in post-disaster situations to collect rapid and objective damage information cost-effectively. By combining satellite-based damage maps with baseline OSM data, quick and remote identification of disaster locations and the extent of damage, such as the number of damaged buildings categorized by type can be obtained for early emergency response planning of humanitarian rescue, delivery of goods, and effective budget mobilization.

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The new Year Showing the promise to become a year of recognition & opportunity I guess! Just been selected as a “Voting Member” of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)!!!

Becoming more integral part of the HOT community is like a dream come true for me. I am sure the recognition will boost my moral and strengthen my voice to represent HOT in both local & global arena. This will motivate me more to dedicate myself to the cause & the community. I’m damn sure that there were many awesome HOT community members who might deserve to be in the team and their turn will also come in a very short period of time. It must have been very tough!!!

For me it was quite a surprise when Pete Masters informed me that he has nominated me as a candidate. I can remember I was asking him whether I’m ready for this and his answer was more than ready!!! I would like to take the opportunity to thank him and the others who have shown the faith on me and supported me throughout my short but eventful journey with #hotosm. I would also like to thank Ahasanul Hoque and the whole community of OSM in Bangladesh for their wonderful, illustrious efforts, commitments & achievements to the cause HOT is continuously working for. Each & every recognition I have & will achieve in this field will always be considered as the glory of your works & support. without you guys I’m just nobody!!!

I would like to congratulate all the new members in the panel who got selected. Thank you guys for your contribution and efforts that made you securing the seats.

Eagerly waiting for the formal introductions to new roles & to carry out the new responsibilities… :)

It’s been a super-fast 02 years with HOT!!!

Throughout my career in the Humanitarian field for last 05 years, I learned a lot about humanitarian works from various organizations operating in my country and found myself deep in love with the movements. Besides working with both in MSF - Belgium and MSF - Holland in the past, I have always been trying to be a part of the Humanitarian movement. However, among all the teams in this field, one team stands aside: HOT. I always feel proud to introduce myself as a part of this global team.

My history with HOT is now getting long, and my dedication to HOT stronger than ever (not difficult, with HOT more amazing than ever). I appreciate Pete Masters & Ahasanul Hoque for introducing me with HOT and continuously backing up with all my works that increased the level of commitment to it. However, it varied recently with time off for some of my personal reasons, fair to say that I voluntarily dedicate more than 30% of working time to HOT.

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It’s been an eventful 2016 for the #OSMBD community altogether. More & more people been introduced to to the #OpenStreetMap platform throughout the year and the community kept on flourishing and more and more vibrant.

Under the inspirational mentor ship of Ahasanul Hoque the #YouthMapper chapters were introduced in the educational institutes. Along with the others the first ever all women university chapter of #YouthMappers was introduced in our country!!! It was quite an achievement to put the spotlight on. We have seen #YouthMappers_DhakaCollege emerging as a formidable unit catching all our eyes with a blast!!! Under the awesome leadership of Sawan Shariar and Atikur Rahman some talented mappers like Ataur Rahman Shaheen has emerged. The team has really been buzzing throughout the later half of the year.

The collaborative effort continued to cooperate with the #Data4Action project by American Red Cross & #BDRCS. Also played supportive role to the DRR project piloted by Asian Development Bank(#ADB) in vulnerable areas at Sirajganj & Barguna District. It was great to see the android application #KOLOROB launched by Save The Children where the #OSMBD community played a significant role in the development process.

As a part of the regular activity, not many but a handsome number of #Mapathon s were successfully organized. Two of the mapper Shamash Arko & Ataur Rahman Shaheen cruising their positions among the top 5 of the missing maps ladder board and the nomination for the community development award @ #SOTM shows the effort & dedication of the community.

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In year 2015, 344 disasters triggered by natural hazards were reported worldwide, affecting 108 countries and nearly 142 million people. That’s 344 times that local communities and organizations, local and national governments, and international organizations needed geographic information on the affected area to inform a rapid and effective response. Unfortunately, there are still many places across the world which lack this basic geographic information, remaining unmapped.

Detailed maps give individuals, organizations and governments’ information to support them in planning DRR activities and preparing for crises. Detailed maps also help humanitarian response actors to get aid where it is needed most, by helping to understand the population size and density, as well as identify and address logistical challenges. Efforts are being made to address the lack of maps in the most neglected places.

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is a global NGO that creates and provides digital and print maps to address the world’s toughest challenges. In times of crisis and natural disaster, HOT rallies a network of volunteers to rapidly produce maps relied upon by humanitarian relief organizations to reach those in need.

A common question about aid is, does it work? In some cases, yes, but not always. Unfortunately, nothing in life is that straightforward. When someone external comes in to do the work and eventually returns home, they leave with the skills and knowledge of the project as well, so how is this sustainable? We believe initiatives carried out by community members, not only provides local knowledge, which instantly enhances the project, but the skills and knowledge associated with the project remain in the area and continue to be applied.

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