Open Source for Good with Open Street Maps
Itirin, Lagos State, Nigeria
Hybrid; Landmark Centre (offline) and online
Keep an eye on the Event Website for further details.
- Type: Talk (30 minutes)
- Target Audience: Anyone
- Difficulty: Introduction
- Language: English
A video recording of the presentation at a previous event is also available on YouTube:
See this presentation at COSCUP 2022
Open Source for Good helps our lives and systems in so many ways. An example is the introduction of OpenStreetMap (OSM) which is a free, editable map of the whole world which is maintained by volunteers. In most parts of the world, geo-data is not free and you won't have full access to it but OSM gives you access to the geo-data.
OSM provides great ways of saving our communities; from collecting geographical data in our communities to creating meaningful insights in time critical decisions in times of disasters, OSM continues to provide a way of improving upon geo-data.
The use of Open Source for Good is widely spreading in some areas but also struggling to permeate through other parts of the world. The Open Cities Accra Chapter have embarked on some projects in the past to contribute more to providing geographical data and wiki data.
Also, topics on how to contribute, data integrity and validity are of great concern when it comes to contributing data but OSM uses the wiki style process thus errors are quickly spotted and corrected since the other 99.9% of people can correct it.
In this presentation, Afi will share their experience from working on projects and with using software which contributed to building resilience for communities through open mapping with OpenStreetMap. We will explore: (subject to change)
- A brief on OSM and how it helps
- Contributions in the past that have helped in some parts of the world
- Touch a bit on Open Cities Africa and talk on a past project
- How to sign up and make your first drawing
- How to upload data correctly on HOTOSM
Speaker: Abigail Afi Gbadago (or: Afi Maame Dufie), Technical Support Coordinator at OpenStreetMap Ghana is a Computer Science graduate from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana. She developed a keen interest for NXT and EV3 Robotics through competitions organized by Ghana Robotics Academy Foundation (GRAF) in 2014 while in high school (Aburi Girls'). After competing at the national level in the Robotics Inspired Science Education Challenge (RiSE) organized by GRAF and representing her country, Ghana and her high school at the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) 2014 in Russia, Sochi, she decided to delve more into tech in university. There, she met various tech communities such as GDG Kumasi, Google DSC, Open Streets Accra, Django Girls, PyLadies, etc. that influenced her tech journey. At the moment, she is a Software Engineer and still volunteers her time as a mentor and speaker at tech events and contributes to the tech communities to help others grow in tech.
Part of the Open Source Festival 2023 (OSCAFEST) conference, which gathers students, developers, designers, and corporate entities to promote open source. Organized by the Open Source Community Africa (OSCA), a community of and for open source lovers, enthusiasts, advocates and experts within and across Africa.