Humanitarian OpenStreetMap: mapping the future of crisis response

Joseph Reeves
@iknowjoseph
[email protected]

1: Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
2: OpenStreetMap
3: HOT, the crowd & Open geo data: Crisis response & disaster prepardness
4: Looking forward

But first, me

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team applies the principles of open source and open data sharing for humanitarian response and economic development
hot.openstreetmap.org

HOT is:
A membership led organisation
Registered as a US not-for-profit
Active across the globe in both funded and unfunded projects
Empowered by thousands of volunteers

(put briefly)
We provide maps for first responders and humanitarian workers

We do have people physically on the ground,
We do undertake paid projects,
but...

We can only do our work with the support of volunteers contributing remotely

2009 Philippines Tropical storm Ondoy
2010 Haiti Earthquake
2011 Horn of Africa famine
2012 Indonesia Risk modelling
2012 USA Hurricane Sandy
2013 Syria Humanitarian crisis
2013 Philipines Typhoon Haiyan
2014 West Africa Ebola Response

We're growing

MapGive
mapgive.state.gov
Part of the Imagery to the Crowd initiative from the U.S. Department of State's Humanintarian Information Unit

OpenStreetMap

"Wikipedia + GPS"
or
"Google Maps that anyone can edit & download"

A collaberative map of the world: A database of real life things

(that's not really like Wikipedia or GMaps at all)

Experts / consumers: Inputs / outputs

Some users of OpenStreetMap:
foursquare
Pintrest
Flickr
cycle.travel
Le Monde
Evernote
Financial Times
National Park Service
GitHub
Nestoria
Craigslist
The LA Times
The Washington Post

LA Times:

HOT, OSM & the crowd

Inputs / outputs

We have people that deal with the outputs

Tacloban airport:

Managing the inputs is largely about communication, documentation & task creation

Blog posts, mailing lists, social media, the OSM wiki

Managing mapping tasks
tasks.hotosm.org

Support from partners: Imagery, data exports, map renderings, publicity

Case studies:
West Africa Ebola Crisis,
Typhoon Haiyan

2014 Ebola Crisis:

March 24th: Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Switzerland + CartONG request maps of affected areas

March 25th: HOT blog post requested volunteers map three towns in Guinea. Imagery purchased by CartONG, aquired from Pléiades 1A. Most mapping complete in 12 hours

March 31st: Mapbox reports 200 mappers contributed 100,000 buildings + hundreds of miles of road

April 11th: We're written up in New Scientist

April 15th: 363 contributors, 1.65 million objects, 150,000 buildings. Additional imagery donated by Mapbox / Digital Globe & Airbus Defence and Space. Activation now covers 3 countries

2013: Typhoon Haiyan / Yolanda:

November 6th: First indentified on email as an upcomming priority. Asked volunteers to map Tacloban

November 8th: Yolanda makes landfall as the strongest ever storm to do so

November 10th: HOT partners with UN OCHA, the American Red Cross & the US State Dept Humanitarian Information Unit

November 13th: Post disaster imagery of Tacolban made available

November 15th: 800+ contributors, 2 million+ changes to the map, 250,000+ buildings mapped

November 16th: Contributors now 1000+

November 24th: 1500+ contributors have edited 4.5 million+ OSM objects

Mapping parties:
Quebec, Cordoba, Kathmandu, Heidelberg, Seville, London, University of Philipines, Valencia, Zagreb, Graz, Washington DC, Managua, Tokyo, Vermont, Heidelberg, Nairobi, Paris, Kapala

Moving forward

Microtasks: More people spending less time

More people doing less concious mapping

Remaptcha:

sorry...

Non mapping tasks: Legal assistance, Health & Safety, communications & the press, software development, funding

Summing up HOT & the crowd:

Thanks for listening