26/06/2026 –, Audition Room - 2nd Floor -80 Langue: English
Since January 2025, the suspension of USAID funding has deprived YouthMappers of its primary financial support. Despite this significant loss, activities around the world have not stopped: chapters across all continents have continued their efforts and carried out high-quality activities, thereby demonstrating their resilience, their capacity to ensure the sustainability of their chapters, and their leadership on a global scale. However, some major activities are now lacking the resources needed to be deployed, notably the Leadership Fellows, Research Fellows, Regional Ambassadors, and EverywhereSheMaps programs, which fostered the emergence of young leaders around the world; it is therefore time for current YouthMappers and alumni to take the lead in identifying new sources of support, whether from foundations or sub-regional and continental organizations, capable of sustaining these activities and ensuring the training of large numbers of young people. It is with this in mind that our discussion session aims to gather ideas and input from all African YouthMappers present at SOTM Africa, in order to collectively co-construct an approach and an advocacy strategy that will help relaunch these activities and provide, as a first step, the Africa chapters with the tools needed to ensure their development sustainably.
Dr. Guy Pacôme Adingra is an Ivorian environmental and geo-data scientist, researcher, and collaborative mapping specialist. Based at the Centre Universitaire de Recherche et d'Application en Télédétection (CURAT) at the Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny in Abidjan, his work integrates remote sensing, GIS, and community mapping for sustainable development and public health.
Laura is a Geospatial engineer and technical community manager working at the intersection of open data, free and open-source software, and sustainable development. With a commitment to building for impact, she harnesses the power of communities to drive positive change. Currently, Laura is an Implementation Officer at Ushahidi, where she leads the implementation of the African Union Civic Tech Fund and partner climate projects. She previously worked at Code for Africa, leading community and project activities for africanDRONE and sensors.AFRICA; initiatives that are pioneering the use of drones and sensors for climate change & deforestation monitoring, and water & air quality pollution detection in African cities.
Additionally, Laura is an active volunteer and enjoys giving back to the tech community. She has been a YouthMappers regional ambassador for the past four years, supporting student-led and faculty-mentored university clubs in East and Central Africa. She also co-created OSM Kenya, advocating for the adoption of open data locally.