The State of OpenStreetMap in Africa
2020-07-04 , Track 2

This talk will present the results of a survey done on the State of the OpenStreetMap, the unique challenges and success of OSM in Africa and how the different communities are working together to grow the map and the community on the continent.


The global State of the Map conference is taking place in Africa for the very first time, and it is a great opportunity to light a torch into the state of OpenStreetMap in Africa. What is happening around the Map the West, Central, South and North of Africa? Where are the active communities, what are the reasons for their success, what challenges are they facing and what solutions are they using to overcome the challenges?

This talk will present the results of a survey done with different OSM communities in Africa to answer the above questions, while at the same time looking at the map data to measure the level of completeness in each country, and examining the reasons behind the different scenarios in the different countries.

The talk will also present the views of OSM Community leaders from Africa on how to promote sustainability, resilience, inclusiveness, diversity and equity in decision making in regards to the future of OpenStreetMap. Why are there very few official local OpenStreetMap Chapters from Africa and what can be done to change the situation?


Subtitle:

The state of OpenStreetMap in Africa

Talk keywords:

challenges, solutions, sustainability, inclusiveness, diversity

Affiliation:

OpenStreetMap Africa, MapUganda, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

Geoffrey Kateregga currently serves as the Community Programs Manager at the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and is an active member of the OpenStreetMap Africa community - a network of local OpenStreetMap communities from all over Africa organizing State of the Map Africa and joining hands to share resources and collaborate to grow and produce a complete and well-detailed map of Africa on OpenStreetMap in order to advance the quality, completeness and sustainability of geospatial data in Africa.