21.11.2024 –, Kleine Bühne
OpenStreetMap turns 20 years old in the fall of 2024. The unique project has long exceeded the founders' original vision and, though invisible to many users, is now indispensable to our digital society.
What role will OSM play in the future, and how will its community deal with AI, competition, and regulatory constraints?
OpenStreetMap turns 20 years old in the fall of 2024. The unique project has long exceeded the founders' original vision and, though invisible to many users, is now indispensable to our digital society.
What role will OSM play in the future, and how will its community deal with AI, competition, and regulatory constraints?
Simon Poole, 63, from Melbourne Australia, co-founded and managed as CEO two successful Internet startups in the 90s and 00s in Switzerland. After studying physics at Zürich University, he worked for a short period of time for the Swiss university computer network SWITCH and then moved on to co-found in 1991 what was to become the first commercial ISP in Switzerland and one of the first in Europe.
Simon created his OSM account in January 2009, but didn’t start mapping till one year later. He is now a moderately active mapper. He was a member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation licence working group from 2011 to 2021, the chairperson of the OSMF in the years 2013 and 2014, and has been the president of the Swiss OpenStreetMap Association since its founding in 2012.