State of the Map Europe 2025

MapSwipe Today and its Future in OSM
2025-11-14 , Way

MapSwipe is an application that enables crowdsourced data collection for OpenStreetMap and helps prioritize mapping efforts by identifying areas needing updates. This talk will explore future possibilities for expanding its role, including potentially allowing direct edits to OSM and strengthening ties with the OSM community for more seamless contributions.


MapSwipe is a mobile and web-based crowdsourcing tool that allows volunteers to identify where up-to-date mapping is needed, supporting OpenStreetMap (OSM) and humanitarian partners worldwide. Originally designed as a triage tool to help prioritize satellite imagery tasks, MapSwipe has grown and adapted based on user needs, partner input, and evolving workflows.

This talk will explore MapSwipe’s journey, from its early days, and its role in large-scale disaster preparedness and response. As we look ahead, new possibilities are emerging: could MapSwipe allow contributors to make direct edits to OSM? Help validate current OSM data and enter it back? Integrate AI and machine learning to improve accuracy, accessibility, or task design? What would that mean for data quality, contributor trust, and OSM’s broader ecosystem?

With growing discussions around AI-generated data and ethical mapping, it’s more important than ever to collaborate transparently with the OSM community. We aim to strengthen ties with mappers, developers, and data users to co-create a responsible future for MapSwipe. This session will share concepts in development, highlight open questions, and invite discussion and feedback on what comes next: for MapSwipe, OSM, and the future of crowdsourced humanitarian mapping.


Affiliation:

MapSwipe, Heidelberg Institute of GeoInformation Technology (HeiGIT)

Benjamin Herfort is researcher at HeiGIT and Heidelberg University. In his PhD he has investigated questions of representation and data quality in OpenStreetMap from the perspectives of humanitarian and machine learning-assisted mapping in order to map what is not mapped. In his research and work he is furthermore dealing with the temporal evolution of OpenStreetMap data, MapSwipe and information from social media.

Benjamin works as a product owner at HeiGIT where he is developing open source tools and methods that incorporate geographic information systems for disaster management, humanitarian aid and climate action.

This speaker also appears in:

Nicole is a total map nerd and loves public transportation maps the best. She also loves community organizing, open source projects, the iD editor, JOSM, and building websites in Hugo.

Nicole has been welcoming and training new mappers with Missing Maps London since 2020. She’s been a HOT voting member since 2022 and has sat on the governance team at MapSwipe since October 2024. In her spare time, she can be found knitting, hiking, going to art museums and film festivals, and hanging out with her beloved dog, Yuki. She currently lives in Hamburg, Germany.