Hi everyone ,happy to sign up and engaged newbies today . Also attended an Innovation week exhibition where we exhibited our work at unique mappers

Thank you Daniel Akor for an amazing job, hosting the Orientation and training of new team leads of LMT-Nsukka.

Look forward to their most active participation with Unique Mappers Community Nigeria as well as university community engagement at UNN

Cheers

I sincerely thank God and do appreciate everyone for the success of the Inaugural State of the Map Nigeria Conference 2022, which held in the garden city of Port Harcourt, 1st -2nd Dec.2022 at the Institute of Petroleum Studies ,University of Port Harcourt. Thanks to all members of the general and Port Harcourt LOC . Thanks to HOT unSummit World Tour program for Sponsoring SotM Nigeria 2022 as one of the destinations of our travel grantees. With HOT unSummit program and WNAH support, 2 international travel grantees and 14 Local travel grantees attended the conference. 👌. Special thanks to our sponsors and technical supporters -TCK Podcast-Uk,The Chicoco Radio and CMaps, Port Harcourt Nigeria ,University of Port Harcourt, University of Nigeria,University of Lagos, Federal School of Surveys,Oyo, TomTom . Mapilary and NASRDA. The conference was supported by 8 keynote Speakers and 2 training workshop . 2 international partners -TomTom and Mapilary provided technical support. 🙌. The Director General of National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) of Nigeria Dr. Halilu Shaba was heavily represented !!! Special thanks to Dr .Wokoma D.C Wokoma former Federal Commissioner and DG of National Population Commission,Nigeria for a great support to the conference.
Special thanks to Janet Chapman of Crowd2Map Tanzania, Associate Prof Nnabugwu Uluocha of University of Lagos,Geography Department, Dr, Ibrahima Cisse of WNAH-HOT, Prof Alexander Zipf of GIScience Research Group Heidelberg University. Dr. Uchechi S.Anaduaka of Unique Mappers Network,Nigeria and Dr. Raphael Ndukwu of Geoinformatics and Surveying department,University of Nigeria for their keynote presentations. Thanks to the Academic track committee: Prof Joel E. Umeuduji of Geography and Environmental Management,University of Port Harcourt and Dr. Raphael Ndukwu of University of Nigeria. The conference was also supported in attendance by dignitaries from the University of Port Harcourt , the Dean of the Faculty of Social Science -Prof Johnson Nna, The Former HOD Geography and Environmental Management,,University of Port Harcourt, Prof Godly Otto -Economics Dept and the Immediate Past President of University of Port Harcourt Women Association-Dr. Ezinneka Okodudu . This 2-day hybrid conference had about 136 online and onsite registered participants and 22 speakers. The conference was an exciting launching pad for subsequent SotM Nigeria conferences 👌 Watch out for the date of SotM Nigeria 2023 coming up soon 👏👌🇳🇬🇳🇬
We heartily congratulate the OSMites in Nigeria ,the Unique Mappers Network for taking this giant stride to host successfully the Inaugural State of the Map Nigeria Conference 2022 Cheers - Victor N.Sunday SotM Nigeria Conference Chair https://stateofthemapnigeria.com/# https://twitter.com/sotmnigeria

Motivations

Have you ever wondered when on earth, you would have opportunity to meet in person, have a handshake, a hug, an off-screen smile, take a coffee or even a lunch together with friends and colleagues you have remotely worked with, as weeks, months and years keeps counting in a virtual world of OpenStreetMap global community? Yes, our trending techs and AI keeps offering us the best of smart connectivity with everyone in a digital space of daily online activities that builds around us a world of virtual communities with uncertainties, barriers and boundaries of never meeting physically in our life time. Have you ever, thought about, the uncertainties of meeting in person such cool guy as Geoffery kateregga and the rest of HOT and OSM Africa local community leaders after consistently working virtually in HOT working groups, OSM Africa Mapathon, Community meeting and the rest for weeks, months and years in a virtual world of OSM.

What about meeting your boss-Pete Masters the Head HOT Global community (of course, if you are a community leader or aspiring and being mentored to be one) after having series of community mentorship, supervision, and virtual meetings through WhatsApp zoom, jitsi and the rest of the virtual platform that makes you forget the distance barrier and that you never had an opportunity to meet in person. Infact, after meeting virtually for years gone by, it only dawned on me that my very boss-Pete Masters had such an intimidating height that would dare me stretching out my neck when I first met him on my arrival for SOTM2022, in Florence, Italy. So, my virtual assumptions were wrong after all, thanks to FOSS4G2022 and unSummit HOT.

What about meeting with our dynamic CEO Tyler Radford at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), the guy who has for the past 7 years pulled HOT through to the implementation of policies and strategies we push to him and the staff as HOT-Voting members. If you are in academics, and as a researcher, which would you prefer most? attending a conference like FOSS4G2022 and SOTM2022 academic track session or even the lightening talk session to present your peer-reviewed research paper or talk in person where you meet one-one to network further or to present virtually from home? What about longing to meet and network with new professional partners and business partners.

What about meeting with Open Mapping NGO-founders like Janet Chapman of Crowd2Map Tanzania, Patricia Solis of Youth Mappers and the CEOs of the Giant Geospatial industry companies like GeoCAT, Mapillary Team, Maptile and the rest. I think beside meeting all these amazing people and organization, my topnotch motivation for this travel grant was to gain and share academic and professional experience for local community impact. And you can imagine without travel grant from FOSS4G and unSummit-HOT supported by sponsors, how would an OSM or Open-Source GIS enthusiast in academics in Nigeria, where, salaries were not paid for more than 7 months or a student in African country struggling to survive afford a conference travel cost of more than $3000 to break the barriers and boundaries of OSM virtual world.

Reminiscing-My trip to Florence-Italy.

Yes, it all started with a dream – I mean dream or motivations, with realistic action: at FOSS4G, I want to have my research work about OSM local and remote mappers presented in person and on the first announcement of the call around February/March for abstract, threw in my abstract submission. Next, I desired to meet in person my academic mentor and supervisor-Professor Maria Brovelli. Yes, I also wanted to volunteer at the conferences and taking advantage of both FOSS4G2022 and SOTM2022 happening at the same city of Florence, I knew, it would be a great time for me sharing experience that would give me a vantage position to bring home to my country-Nigeria hosting FOSS4G and SOTM. Besides, being there as a community leader in Nigeria would be a great motivation for sustainable OSM volunteering for the community. Amazingly, this dream came true, when on 11th May,2022, at about 11:00am WAT, a smile-provoking mail hit my box reading as follows: It is our pleasure to inform you that your FOSS4G Travel Grant application has been accepted!

Please confirm reception of this message by next Monday, May 16, 2022 and provide the following additional information needed to process your application by May 20, 2022: • A copy of your valid passport photo page • Tentative dates of arrival and departure The next day I jumped out traveling to our neighbouring state- Bayelsa from Port Harcourt, Rivers State Nigeria, to get my international passport renewed !! so I can submit on or before May 20th. The journey of getting a renewed passport is another story that eventually took more than 8 weeks (due to unavailability of passport booklet) and finally on July 16th, I was able to proceed with visa applications using my renewed passport. And while this process was going on, June 20th, it turned out a double blessing as this mail also hit my box at about 2:38pm WAT:

Dear Victor N. Sunday,

Congratulations! We are pleased to offer you a travel support grant to attend SOTM and FOSS4G 2022. As you specified in your application, the travel support grant covers the amount required for a SOTM conference ticket, accommodation, and minimal costs not covered by the FOSS4G grant.

We are excited to have you join the conferences and share your ideas and experiences with the other participants. Your travel support grant is contingent upon your attendance. If you can no longer attend, please let us know so we can offer your grant to another of the many people who applied.

Thanks to the FOSS4G Travel Grant committee, the unSummit Scholarship committee, the visa committee, Picolo, Anisa, Dana and Arnalie for an amazing follow up. Infact, Arnalie was probably 24/7 online communicating and following up with visa and travel readiness and I can still remember, it was time to leave, she created a WhatsApp group unSummit Scholars 2022 for to ensure everyone was on course and had a hitch-free trip. Thanks to our big sponsors GeoCAT and the rest listed on sponsorship page of FOSS4G2022 and SOTM2022. And more, especially, thanks to HOT for coming up with the unSummit HOT Scholars World Tour program

Concluding to be continued if you need more!!

Though, I still have much stories to share about my pre-departure preparations (internal travels for visa processing, COVID-19 PCR-Test, missing my flight-not deliberately), my 8hours layover time in Germany Frankfurt International Airport, my time in Italy (SOTM participation, Archi Ross Hostel time, Volunteering FOSS4G participation and business networking) as well as my post-arrival experience that worth sharing. I look forward to continuing this diary with time on my side but for now, let the video and pictures speak. And remember, am not yet done with my breaking the barriers of OSM virtual world and so I still have more reasons to be granted to travel to FOSS4G and SOTM conferences ahead in other countries with the support of our sponsors. And, if you also need to be granted the fund to travel, then, let us not just dream, but also prepare and work to have more than enough and excellent reasons/motivations and score points to convince the committee that we need to break the barrier-using FOSS4G and or SOTM Travel grants. Keep the passion for volunteering in your local osm community, let’s do more academic research about OSM Science and open-Source GIS, join your local OSM community working groups, HOT working group and keep contributing to OSM. I need you to be the next travel grantee for FOSS4G and or SOTM. Thanks to HOT unSummit Scholars World Tour program.

Today I participated in Unique Mappers OSM Nigeria monthly Mapathon during which I facilitated the mapathon and providing training to newbies in the beginners room. It was so exciting to have everyone joining from diffrerent parts of Nigeria and beyond ,including Germany and Tanzania. We look look forward in the few weeks ahead Etsako east project would be completely mapped to provide open map data to drive humanitarian response and social good project

It was amazing and exiting to have our Unique mappers community joining again for the 1-week Mapathon Webinar #mapmyvillage . Good to have Raph-the HOT Global Validation Team lead joining us to handle the validation training room.And thanks to Kingsely and Chiosm Okwuchi for amazing job in the beginners room and advance mappers room. We had maore participants joining to learn how to map thier villages in OSM

It was so exciting to finally have a successful Monthly Mapathon kick-off in Nigeria on Saturday ,30th April 2022. One of the innovative aspect of this mapathon is the Panel session during which panelist from the Unique Mappers Community were able to discuss data use cases for data being contributed. This helped newbies to understand that we are not just mapping for fun but to drive development and humanitarian response. We also had breakout rooms for training using the zoom platform. Highlights of the 2housr mapathon includes: Unique Mappers Network -The Local Community of OpenStreetMap in Nigeria Launches a Monthly Mapathon Tagged : #MapMyVillage Campaign for Social Good Featuring Mapathon Training 1. Getting started as a Beginner Mapper in OpenStreetMap 2. Advancing your Mapping Skills in OpenStreetMap Panel Session Mapping My Village for Social Good Certificate of Participation Internet Data Support for 1-week Mapathon Since, we made it a one week mapathon ,newbies would be signed up and virtually be guided and trained to remotely map their villages in Nigeria. I sincerely appreciate all management team of Unique Mappers network for the amazing cooperation and passion to see this mapathon take off and we look forward to sustaining this effort.

It was quite exciting to meet virtually with the new team lead of OyoMappersTeam ,one of the founding team of Unique Mappers OSM Community Nigeria , The team was co-doundaed by Mrs Mary Marcellineus and Victor N.Sunday in 2017. The Team Coordinator, Mrs Mary was also excited to have us discuss ways of breaking barriers to community engagement at Oyo. One of the constraints she is battling is the access to internet connectivity for mapping which is very costly for members to afford . Most often she had to use part of her meager salary ,to ensure, a mapping event or training is hosted . In response, the team was given hope ,that ,such barriers is bound to be overcome as we all work together as a local community NGO for Nigeria -The Unique Mappers ,so we can seek for funding for humanitarian response mapping in Nigeria. If members were up and doing with annual dues/reg ,that would serve effectively to provide internet subscription support for the team but now we can only rely on possible micro grant and donations ,to help us provide sustaining fee internet subscription for mapathon. The team was advised at the moment to get Mi-fire for monthly subscription to hotspot for 32/64 participants or make use of their smartphones. While,Unique Mappers would always be there for the team to provide necessary support. The meeting was as an exciting way to wrap up the day’s activities for OSM volunteering

I participated in this training and was able to provide training on introduction to OSM and HOT Tasking Manager today. Really appreciates everyone who attended from Osun State,Enugu State,Abuja,Kogi,Ogun and others for Unique Mappers Community Nigeria

Today,I hosted a successful meeting to merge the effort of Unique Mappers Network which started in March 2018 as UniLagMapperTeam with Key to the City Gate -Youth Mappers University of Lagos officially affiliated to Youth Mappers as a chapter in 2019. This meeting was necessitated by the need to reactivate OSM activities among students by Olarenwaju ,who graduated from same University a year ago .Issues at state include: 1. Should he proceed his OSM volunteer work with existing platform created by Unique Mappers Network as UniLagMappersTeam thereby having 2 OSM student teams in thesame University? 2. Should he proceed with Key to the City Gate YouthMappers affilated to another department and ignore the UniLagMappersTeam already known in his department 3. Should a team be created wiith entirely a new branded name and get that affiliated to YouthMappers ? Having convened the meeting which lasted about 55minutes with the following in attendance: 1 Dr.Peter Ellias -the faculty Advisor of Key to City Gate YouthMappers 2. Hameed Olarenwaju —–Unique Mappers Volunteer/Mentor University of lagos 3. Mercy Akintola -The FIUTA Youthmappers President and Reginal Ambassador 4. Olawatoyin -the Student leader of Key to the City Gate YouthMappers Chapter. I made it clear that the essence of hosting the meeting was to find a way forward for active OSM community engagement at University of Lagos and that Olanrewaju has volunteered to mobilize ,grow and mentor newbies . Although ,we stared a team of student volunteers in March 2018 with a whatsaap group accommodating about 15-20 student volunteers ,engaging them in OSM training and Mapathon with Missing maps leaders board https://www.missingmaps.org/leaderboards/#/unilagmappersteam The fact that Key to the City Gate Youth Mappers got registered as Youth Mappers in 2019 should not creation a faction rather the effort of the two teams should be merged and reactivated for the benefit of the newbies to be mobilized .Dir.Elias Peter ,the Faculty Advisor of the Youth mappers Chapter noted that he was not aware of the existing UniLagMappersTeam before the affiliation of his team to Youth mappers . Conclusively, the current team leader of the Youth Mappers …Miss Oluwatoyin appeal for more training as most of the current members less than 10 students are yet to sign up to OSM . Olanrewaju with username Hmddgreat was encouraged to proceed with his work as a Volunteer mentor to the YouthMappers Chapter . I also noted that ,Peter Ellias as a faculty advisor should feel free to hold or amend the branded name for the OSM Team .Mery Akintola advised for more training for the team. Looking forward to a reactivated and vibrant Youth Mappers Chapter at University of Lagos. As Indigenous OSM Nigeria NGO @Unique Mappers Network, we are always available to support, grow and expand OSM Community in Nigeria and beyond and we look forward to building more teams in Nigerian Universities with affiliation to Youth Mappers .Thanks to Peter,Olanrewaju,Oluwatoyin and Mercy for being there to see we had a successfull meeting to impact locally on OSM community at University of Lagos. Cheers.

I Just had a brief orientation with Oluwatosin and Ijeoma on OSM and how Unique Mappers contribute to OSM project . I look forward they will pick it up from there… How brief can you make an orientation about OSM? just to get newbies excited and get on board as active Local OSM Mappers?

Its being quite a while on OSM diary and lots have been taking place in Nigeria OSM Community as Unique Mappers,the NGO community for OpenSTreetMap in Nigeria continues to grow and expand the OSM project in Nigeria even in the lock down of #COVID19.

We have had series of COVID19 Community empowerment and Mappers Wanted Training from March though April-the global Citizen Science Month and then into May. The moments include the MapWithAI Webinar traninng ,Mappilary training and the GODAN-Unique Mappers Webinar “Empowering Women in Agriculture with Open Data Mapping :Implications for Land Rights and SDGS. https://landportal.org/blog-post/2020/05/empowering-women-open-data-mapping-agriculture-implications-land-rights-and-sdgs

However,today ,I am so excited having my mentor and one of the corporate supporter of OSM in Nigeria sign up to OSM to add name a road in his village..We made use of google meet for the training and it was fun!! .Prof.Eze who is the managing Consultant of Transparent Earth Nigeria Ltd,-Corporate partner of Unique Mappers Nigeria sponsored as a community service the #Ogrute Ugwue Eru Mapathon for SDG-2 Food Security Project in Nigeria carried out by Unique Mappers . He also sponsors the Unique mappers best Mappers Annual Prize award.

Meanwhile,Victor Ezugwu(Victor1234)one of the state coordinator of Unique mappers Nigeria and HOT Voting member also closed up today succeeding in starting a new Chapter of Unique Mappers by mobilizing 12 newbies using social media . Surprisingly,with his passion ,Unique Mappers Ibadan has just begun…with the creation of a whatsaap group for the coordination and mentoring of these OSM newbies. Amidst,the #COVID19, locakdown,the youths and veveryone staying at home wants to do something new and get off the boring moments and here comes Unique Mappers Ibadan for newbies of OSM in Oyo state,Nigeria. We look forward to providing virtual community engagement for this new chapter as we map COVID19 in Nigeria

Looking back to 2019,I have the following bits of contributions and moments for my diary record in favour of OpenStreetMap Community and sustainability.

1 . Initiated and hosted series of planing meetings to activate community participation ,growth and expansion of OpenStreetMap Community in Nigeria ,especially,in January 2019.

2 . Contributed and also advocated for HOT Microgrant 2019 donations

3 . Applied for HOT Microgrant 2019 to drive Local community projects in Nigeria but luck was not on our side

4 . Participated in Regional Meetings for OSM Africa Coordination ,especially,when,time permits

5 . In April ,I made sure my local community hosted International Women Day (IWD)2019 to drive gender equality in mapping community and geospatial women empowerment.This also was used to campaign for LetGirlsMap program. For me ,this event has come to stay after succesully hosting it same period in 2018. For 2019 IWD ,the event was tagged :Geospatial Technology the Solution for Women Transformation:Balance for better.

6 . From July to August ,facilitated Mapathon training for Local UniqueMappers Communities at Abia State,Imo State ,Enugu State and Anambra State respectively in Nigeria

7 . Started up UniqueMappers Awka at Nmandi Azikiwe University Awka with the help of Prof.Ifeanyi Enete who mobilzed compus community members comprising of students and staff

8 . Started up UniqueMappers Yola credits to Nnadozie Onyeukwu (State Coordinator) and Saliha who worked very hard to kick-start activities for this local team of UniqueMappers without me travelling to Adamawa state to coordinate.And todate their whatsaap group is quite lively and with active osmites.

9 . Finally succeeded in getting UniqueMappers registered with the Federal Government of Nigeria as the NGO for OpenStreetMap Nigeria Community.This would help to re-position our OSM community efforts for effective project and stake-holders driven community engagement

10 . I missed the State of the Map Conference in Germany and Cote d’ Ivoire -State of the Map Africa ,as well as HOT Summit 2019 in Germany,due to unavailability of travel fund,but ,no worries because,I already had a good deal from FOSS4G2019 Bucharest ,thanks ,to UNFPA for such an amazing support ,giving me opportunity to break the virtual barrier to interact with Prof .Maria Broveli (My OSM Research Mentor) ,Marco and so many others.

11 . And for GODAN giving me the opportunity to meet with Nathalie Sidibe,Enoch Faneva and other OSM Africa Community members for the first time ,tinkering around the use of OSM for agriculture and nutrition at the African Geospatial Data and Internet Conference (AGDIC) 2019 in Ghana .It was all about using OSM and GeoForAll to drive SDG 2

12 . ANd no worries yet,because,I had 2 of my local community leaders:Ezugwu Victor and Mary Marcellineous who also attended the state of the map Africa in Cote d’ Ivoire….Thanks to Geoffery Kateregga for the support

13 . Thanks to Victor Ezeuqwu and Geoffery Keteregga for a good job at the NYSC camp mobilizing and training more than 1000 graguate youths to help us start up a local community at UniqueMappers Kogi .Looking forward to more active participation and coordination via Victor Ezugwu-State Coordinator-UniqueMappers-Kogi

14 . Mobilized to Celebrate UniqueMappers Nigeria 2nd Anniversary and OSM 15 Anniversary…It was also time for the community to have fun

15 . Had meeting with Tyler Radford for Capacity building support ,and other meetings and mails over quality mapping issues in Nigeria OSM.Thanks to Andrew Wiseman and Chad Bevin for your support and follow-ups

16 . Had Mapping Tasks for Disaster Risk Reduction and academic research for Oill Spill community response mapathons.

17 . Had not less than 100 newbies signed up to OSM via community growth and expansion in Nigeria

18 .In december,I led local community leaders to the field for Community drone Mapping in preparation of our next Mapathon to drive #SDG2

19 . Recorded on closing for 2019 more than 140,000 edits on the UniqueMappersTeam missing maps leaders board http://www.missingmaps.org/leaderboards/#/uniquemappersteam

20 . I also campaigned and coordinated #OSMGeoweek2019 event in various parts of Nigeria in November.And it was also time for us to reach out to the high schools for an inclusive community.

21.Yea,I also applied with Local leaders to host State of the Map Africa 2019,but ,we lost it to Cote d’ Voire .A good experience to prepare best for the next opportunity,at all we are growing bigger and stronger with both private and public sector involvement in OSM Nigeria.

22 . And you know as a lecturer,I was able to smoothly introduce and teach OSM as part of my course content for undergraduate digital Cartography and Open Source Cartography,and to see students dealing with such questions as ‘’ Discuss OpenStreetMap as a Wikipedia of Cartography’’

23 . Had my students research projects data open Source GIS and OSM-driven,increasing UniqueMappers SDG target for quality education.

24 . As a HOT Voting Member ,and community working group member as well as OpenStreetMap Foundation member,I had more time to building the Local Community than participation at the global community.

Will add more ……..later…..but I want to say thank you to every who made it possible for me to impact in one way or the other via OSM Community in Nigeria and beyond !!

I had a successful meeting with Victor Essang and some UniqueMappers OSMNgera Leaders for community expansion of UniqueMappers OSMNIgeria at Uyo-Nigeria

Meeting time :9:30-!0:28pm Nigerian time Meeting ID 755 993 243 Zoom

Highlights: 1.Introduction of attendees 2.Introduction of Victor Essang OSM Effort-Uyo
3.OSM Community Structure 4.UniqueMappers-Uyo 5.Annuual OSMites Diary Record/Reports 6.Mappy Chrismas and UniqueMappers 2020 7.AOB
Convener:Victor N.Sunday UniqueMappers OSMNigeria National Coordinator

Prior to this meeting,we had a chat yesterday during which I did acknowledge his efforts in hosting #OSMGeoweek2019 Mapathon as well as applying for a #HOTMicrogrant2020 .

Our meeting today,Victor Ezeugwu-State Coordinator-UniqueMappers Kogi ,Knigsely Chukwu-LMTEnugu and Onyeukwu Nnadozie-State Coordinator-UniqueMappers-Yola was were in attendance. To drive a well coordinated OSMNigeria Community,we need everyone to work together with selfless effort to sustain and expand OpenStreetMap data and local communities in Nigeria.We have the workplan to mobilize and build local communities in every state and Universities in Nigeria like we now have UniqueMappers-Kogi ,UniqueMappers-Yola and for for Uyo,we have beein limited by time and resources and so would not like to duplicate the effort of Victor Essang ,who already has raised up a team.As such we need to consolidate and support the team as UniqueMappers Uyo. By doing so ,we are going to mobilize more osmites and get them trained to sustain UniqueMappers Uyo both as a local community at Uyo and a student team at University of Uyo. I also informed them to encourage their team members to update their OSM diary with their individual annual report.so we can share our motivations,insights and achievements to the OSM global community. Victor Essang was quite glad and responded with excitement as we welcomed him to UniqueMappersTeam,Nigeria the Community NGO for #OpenStreeTMapNigeria #OSMNigeria

Following our planned schedule to host a forthrightly webinar training session for all the teams I created and OSMNigeria Community,we successfully held our first webinar today. Agenda for the meeting include: 1 . Briefing from OSMNigeria Coordinator (Victor N.SUnday) 2 . OSM Communities-Local and global 3 . HOT Working Groups 4 . OSM Africa 5 , Mapping Tasks 6 . Brief from HOT Community Staff /Board Representative available 7 . Questions and Answer Session 8 . Review of past topics

It was great having participants and team coordinators/leaders of the various teams/local communities in attendance. Thank you so much Trudy Hope for showing up with a short notice via whatsApp message ,your presence and briefing were inspiring !!! Trudy Hope ,being a board Director of HOT was able to share good ideas to boost our growing community..And to my brother from another country Peter Johannes,you are always amazing ,showing up as a senior mentor so close to OSM activities and progress in Nigeria,thank you for coming on board to make our day. And to my OSMNigeria Community assistant ,Chukwuma Okolie, of Unilagmappersteam,you did a very nice and brief review of our previous webinar training.Thank you @Ikenna of AbsuMappersTeam and Saviour of UniqueMappersTeam Network.You all did a nice job!!! Look forward to working with you guys always to impact and grow #UniqueMappersTeam Network and #OSMNigeria.Cheers

Yea,to effectively #mapthedifference2019 from Nigeria local openstreetmap community ,I hosted a planing meeting of team coordinators and leaders of the mappers teams I created and mentor in various Nigerian Universities.These teams are affiliated teams of #uniquemappersteam network,nigeria,#hotosm and #youthmappers..The following were present:

1. Ikenna Arungwa - Team leader-#absumappersteam -Abia State University,Uturu
2. Ezekiel Annointing -Team Leader #unimaidmappersteam-University of Maiduguri,Borno
3. Dr Uluocha Nnabugwu and Mr Chukwuma Okolie-Team Coordinator & Team Leader-#unilagmappersteam-University of Lagos
4. Mrs Mary Marcellineous -Team Coordinator -#oyomappersteam -Federal School of Surveys,Oyo
5. Saviour Owujie and Mercy Bannu,Team Leader and Team Secretary General -#uniquemappersteam Network ,-Port Harcourt
6. Kingsely Chukwu,Vyvian Amara Ugwudinso and Victor Ezeugwu ..Team Ledaers #lionmappersteamenugucampus ,,University of Nigeria Enugu Campus.
7. .Victor N.Sunday -Team Coordinator/mentor #osmnigeria #uniquemappersteam With these passionate osmites we had a 2-hour briefing and deliberations on the way forward as local OSM community in Nigeria.

Our deliberations was as listed below:

1. Kick-starting our national #mapperswanted training webinar series which was agreed that for this year it should be forth nightly(twice in a month)instead of weekly.
2. Conferences and OSM/OSGEO opportunities for the year,including HOT microgrant application,which I encouraged all the university team/community to apply,while #OSMNigeria will also apply for the benefit of all the teams
3. OSM Nigeria Community 2019 programs and projects
4. Individual team/community capacity building via training and expansion of the community and participation in projects and global HOT community webinar.They were also encouraged to feature actively in #osmafrica community activities and planning meetings for the forth coming state of the map Africa in November 2019.

Questions were asked on the difference between tasks.teachosm and task.hotosm as well as the link to OSM diary.These were cleared and the issue of erroneous mapping and tagging was also pointed out as a team member of Ignatius Mappers Team was identified by Andrew of USAID,so mappers in #osmnigeria need to map accurately . We look forward to meet again to strategize and implement as deliberated!!so we can #mapthedifference2019 effectively

I am so excited we are getting right from the start as we take off for the year,hosting webinar planing meetings with the team leaders of our local community teams in various universities in Nigeria. Starting with contacts with the team leaders of UniqueMappersTeam,then AbsuMappersTeam and today ,a successful webinar deliberation with the team leaders of LionMappersTeam-Enugu Campus;Kingsely,Vyvian and Victor Ezeugwu.The meeting gave direction to the new year’s activities and proposals. Following this,webinar training will commence to strengthen the capacity of each team. As the Coordinator of these teams,I look forward that each of them will certainly do exploit in OSM community this year!!!

A review of my OSM activities for 2018 is noteworthy and sharing .And sincerely,I wish to appreciate all community members who worked with me,assisted me and contributed to these listed moments and milestones of 2018.

1 ..In January,we started with a GIS/Remote Sensing Seminar…Creating awareness of OSM data application.Thanks to Team leaders @uniquemappersteam

2 .March,I successfully hosted the International Women’s Day tagged Geospatial Technology:The Solution for Women Transformation featuring Reasons for International Women’s Day,OSM;the voice for Vulnerable Women,Mapathon Party for Vulnerable Women

3 .In March,I co-founded UnMaidMappersTeam-University of Maiduguri,Borno State with Mamman Ali ,a student of Geography Department ,who visited University of Port Harcourt for one-one training with me and my team leaders.Subsequent training and mentoring continued via webinar and whatsApp chat group for the team that accommodate more than 50 members

4 .I created #AbsuMappersTeam-Abia State University -co-founding with Professor J.U.Ogbonna,the Team Coordinator and Faculty Advisor mentoring via whatsapp chat group,visitation and webinar training

5 . Also in April, we had the emergence of #ImsuMappersTeam-Imo State University,Nigeria in April,with Mr.Lazarus of Geography and Environmental Studies as the Team Coordinator.I mentor via webinar training and whatsapp chat group\

6 . Also a platform was created to establish #FutoMappersTeam and this effort is in progress

7 . In April,I became a HOT-Micrograntee for Nigeria and had the funding support for the purchase of devices (Smartphoines,Laptops and other equipment as well as internet data subscription for community mapping efforts @Uniquemappersteam.

I was also nominated and elected into HOT Voting Membership

8 . in June ,we had our 1st Anniversary mapathon,OSMfight that scaled up edits of uniquemappersteam from 4000 to more than 15,000

9 .Our Team members responded to global disaster events and mapped remotely in more than 40 countries with one month

1. . I made a presentation at London MSF Mapathon via webner,thanks to Pete Masters for taking us to a global level of interaction ,it so exciting and rewarding!!!

11 . I had four conference papers presented at the HOT/FOSS4G Summit in Tanzania ,thanks to Rebecca Firth and Rachael of HOT for coming to our urgent need to facilitate a fully funded trip for my representative ,Faith Umuokoro,to enable us participate in the conference. Thanks to FOSS4G travel grant committee for the support.

12 . The last quarter of 2018 was full of OSM activities,We had travels to Abuja for failed visa appointment in September,following a fully funded travel grant from OpenStreetMap US to attend state of the map US for paper presenation

https://2018.stateofthemap.us/program/mapping-accuracy-in-openstreetmap.html

We showed presence at the 40th Anniversary/conference of the Nigerian Cartographic Association ,Abuja . We presented both technical papers and training at the annual conference of Geoinformation Society of Nigeria(GEOSON),Abuja,Nigeria ,including Mapping with HOT Tasking Manager for Disaster Response. We hosted and participated in a global mapthon to #endfgm Female Genital Mutilation #map2endfgm http://www.missingmaps.org/leaderboards/#/map2endfgm I also co-founded #Uzmappers of University of Zimbabwe with Bere and Marbel students of Geography Department and Mr.Ndiamni,the Team coordinator

Closing up the year,#mrchks of University of Lagos came to my assistance,and we expanded #OSMNigeria with additional more than 500 new OSM subscribers ,creating 3 whatsApp chat groups and hosting #mapperswantedtraining.

Then ,emerged the aggresivelly passionate UniLagMappersTeam with Dr.N.O.Uluocha as the Team Coodinator/Facutly Advisor and Chukwuma Okolie as the Team Leader.

Even on 25th December night,we held a webinar training for #AbsuMappersTeam and #ImsuMappersTeam enthusiastic team members,thanks to Ikenna who came on board for Absumappersteam.

Thanks to Ezinne Egbom ,our uniquemappersteam PhD Researcher on Malaria Parasitimea prevalence mapping in Rivers State and all our team members who travellled the creeks and lands of Rivers State 23 LGA’s to collect baseline data to facilitate the research,Honesty,corper Victor,Corper Jonathan,Pastor Emma and others.Chukwudubem,You were brave as a team leader to traverse the volatile creeks and swamps of Rivers state geocoding PHC’s to elimanate malaria!!!

mapthedifference2018 closed up with #uniqumappersteam starting with less than 5000 edits and closing up with more than 130,913 edits of 124,038 buildings and 1128km of roads mapped for 2018.thanks to #hotosmmicrogrant2018 http://www.missingmaps.org/leaderboards/#/uniquemappersteam

OLODIA AMBROSE closing up with more than 18,000 edits https://www.missingmaps.org/users/#/OLODIA%20AMBROSE Thank you so much Ambrose for your energy and time to contribute such a huge data as well as your fiend and #OSMFighting mate # Inneh Precious who mapped 15,639 edits !!!

Surprisingly,our emerging #unilagmappersteam mapped and closed up the year with 27,639 edit just in the month of December,2018 .http://www.missingmaps.org/leaderboards/#/unilagmappersteam

Thanks to #mrchuks Chukwuma Okolie for this amazing job and wonderful beginning of UniLagmappersTeam

Thanks to Toeby and Samuel Akin of Unilagmappersteam

Thanks to #valerie143 of UniqueMappersTeam for your feats in #letgirlmap leaderboard http://www.missingmaps.org/leaderboards/#/letgirlsmap She is a very mappers that does give way to competitors within level

Thanks to #Emmanuel Chidera https://www.missingmaps.org/users/#/Emmanuel%20Chidera for the wonderful website you designed for Uniquemppersteam # http://uniquemappersteam.checkam.info/

Thank you for taking up the challenge the work under my mentor-ship and supervision for your undergraduate final OSM-Based webmapping research project

Thanks to Cho of OSM Cameroun for hosting out website without any cost,just to contribute to OSM growth

Thanks to Professor J.E.Umeuduji of Geography and Environmental management,University of Port Harcourt for being there for UniqueMappersTeam,for taking out time to map to the level of a Pro-mappers https://www.missingmaps.org/users/#/Umeuduji

Thanks to Chukwudubem Nzewi for being there taking all the amazing selfie pictures of uniqueMappersTeam and working as a team leader

Thanks to Mercy Bannu #mercix for being the director of mapswipe coaching and training many on mapswipe via webinar and training seminar.You did an amazing job dear!!!Keep it up

Thanks to Saviour Owujie,Ifeoma,and Blessing Oshoma for amazing team player

Thanks to Godslove Ishola for the amazing graphic designs of all our posters,fyers and prints,you were always there to volunteer as much as motivations were available !!

Thanks to Dr.Shaba Halilu of NASRDA for your support ,connecting us to NASRDA GSI Taining in ort Harcourt

Thanks to Dr.W.D.C Wokoma(Former DG-National Population Commission,Nigeria) for your follow-up and mentoring to the team

Thanks to Nigerian Red Cross,Rivers State branch for giving us the opportunity to reach out to your team with the knowledge of OSM

Thanks to my research supervisor :Professor Chukwunonyelum Okpala-okaka of University of Nigeria,Enugu campus and #lionmapeersteam-Enugu campus,Professor Maria Broville of Politecnico di Milano,Italy as well as Professor Stuart Marsh of University of Nottingham for being my 3rd eye and research mentors!!! and I cannot forget Professor Haklay Muki of UCL ,my distant Participatory Citizen Science and VGI mentor!!!

Thanks to #Kingvik of 3lionmappersteamenugucampus,you did a great job supporting my mentoring and outreach effotrs to Uzmappers and lionmappersteam

Thanks to Daniel of Netherland Red Cross ,who came to our help to response to Joinkrama floods in Rivers state https://tasks.hotosm.org/project/5323#bottom

Thanks to Transparent Earth Nigeria Ltd for granting us local partnership MOU and annual mapping wards of N30k for uniqueMappersTeam best mapper https://www.hotosm.org/updates/uniquemappersteam-collaboration-with-transparent-earth-nigeria-ltd/

Thanks to Pete Masters,Rebecca Firth ,Peter Johannes and Geoffery Kateregga for all the amazing support to help us #mapthedifference2018 Thanks to #HOTOSM #microgrant2018 donors Thank you thank you and thank you everyone for being there for me in 2018 growing and expanding OSM community!! Let’s donate and work together to #mapthedifference2019 !!!

Thanks to Ambrose,Dubem,Precious and Ify for you amazing contributions to FGM Mapathon last weekend.Thank you UniquemappersTeam see leader board http://www.missingmaps.org/leaderboards/#/map2endfgm

I wonder why I spent so much time in and out on US Visa application when I can invest such time helping out my brothers in Philippines being ravaged by disastrous Typhon!!! Just occurred to me I can leave the Visa system for a while to cool off while I contribute to task #5236.And it was a great idea coz I just mapped a number of buildings.Let’s keep mapping using every slight opportunity on net!!!!#uniquemappersteam Now I can check back on the US visa application system to continue!!!