Recent Updates

HOT goes Cartographic with TileMill

Posted by Katrina E. on Dec, 17 2012

What good are maps if they are not beautiful? Last week, Jeff Haack and I taught the eight Indonesian trainers how to use Mapbox and its offline editor, TileMill. These tools will be taught in the upcoming Advanced training workshop so that the provincial government can understand how to create and put up maps on their websites.

HOT Activation, Sud et Nord Kivu, République démocratique du Congo

Posted by pierre.beland on Dec, 13 2012

Situation inquiétante dans les Kivus 2012-12-16 Compte-tenu que la situation devient plus grave, HOT modifie le statut de Pré-Activation à Activation. À la fin Octobre, le Bureau des Nations Unies pour la coordination des affaires humanitaires (OCHA) a signalé plus de 910.000 personnes déplacées dans le Sud et le Nord-Kivu en République démocratique du Congo (dont environ 500,000 ont été déplacées depuis Avril 2012). Au début de Décembre, le CICR a mis en évidence la situation humanitaire préoccupante et très complexe dans cette région. Il y a actuellement une accalmie relative dans les zones les plus durement touchées par les récents combats, alors que dans le même temps dans d'autres communautés du Kivu subissent les effets des combats et des actes d'une extrême violence, qui n'épargnent ni les femmes ni les enfants. La présente crise humanitaire est suite à des décennies de combats dans la région. Ceux-ci sont souvent accompagnés de pillages, d'incendies criminels et de violence contre les personnes et provoquent des déplacements chroniques et forcés de la population.

HOT Activation, South and North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo

Posted by pierre.beland on Dec, 12 2012

Worrying situation in the Kivus 2012-12-16 Given the more severe situation in the Kivus, HOT changes the status from Pre-Activation to Activation. In a recent meeting, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported more than 910,000 displaced people in South and North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (whose about 500,000 have been displaced since April 2012). In early December, the ICRC highlighted the worrying humanitarian situation and very complex in this region. There is currently a relative lull in the areas that were hardest hit by the recent fighting, while at the same time in other parts of Kivu communities suffer the effects of fighting and acts of extreme violence, which spare neither women nor children. The current humanitarian crisis follows decades of combats in the region. These are often accompanied by looting, arson and violence against people and provoke chronic forced displacement of population.

Intermediate Trainings Begin

Posted by Katrina E. on Dec, 6 2012

Last week, we started intermediate training for the six disaster prone provinces that we are piloting. Our intermediate material covers some gaps that we did not have time to cover in the beginning workshops, like how to offset imagery that is incorrectly georeferenced and/or conflict resolution. We covered general topics that focused on better OSM editing and validating: 01. Editing in Detail 1.5. Conflict Resolution 02. Quality Assurance (and the Tasking Manager) 03. Editing the Wiki 04. Creating XML and JOSM presets 05. Private Data Store [inline:Selection_021.png]

OSM FlossManuals in Kreyòl

Posted by anne on Dec, 5 2012

This week in Port-au-Prince is happening a booksprint to write a kreyol manual of OpenStreetMap. On Saturday December 8, the Haitian community will have a manual in its own language. Floss Manuals ? Floss Manuals is a platform that promote and organise the realisation of manuals about free libre open source softwares and free culture. We mostly use the booksprint methodology in order to produce the manual in a week. Yes: within 5 days, 5-8 participants from different though complementary horizons, decides of the table of content, write the content, take care of the correction process and have the book published (online and possibly on paper format).

Faces of HOT: Volunteer Joseph Reeves

Posted by Katrina E. on Nov, 22 2012

We have been fortunate to get a few volunteers for this Indonesian project. One of them is the brazen Joseph Reeves (see the pictures below to get an idea of his fame). Joseph works as the IT coordinator at the Oxford Archaeology, but twice he has devoted his vacation time to the Indonesian project. He has helped lead workshops on the basics of OpenstreetMap. [inline:jose.jpg]

Faces of HOT: Meet Dewi, Indonesian OSM Trainer

Posted by Katrina E. on Nov, 7 2012

Since August 2012, the HOT team has included eight Indonesian trainers who teach beginning and, soon, intermediate and advanced OSM workshops all over Indonesia. Six of these OSM instructors were hired in August, while two (Emir and Va) have been working with Kate since June 2011. This week, we will meet Dewi Sulistioningrum (say that ten times fast...). [inline:dewi2.jpg] Picture 1. Dewi in West Papua, where we conduct one of the OSM Trainings How did you get involved with OSM?

Digital Humanitarian Network Simulation at ICCM Washington DC

Posted by sev_hotosm on Nov, 3 2012

Thanks to OCHA, I had the opportunity to participate in the whole ICCM (International Conference for Crisis Mappers) in Washington, DC, October 11-14. Organized by Crisis Mappers, OCHA and TechChange, with funds from the ICT4Peace Foundation the last day.

Two weeks of field work within the EUROSHA Chad Project

Posted by nicolas on Oct, 31 2012

Last night of hard work in the meeting room of the UNHCR in Gore (Southern Chad) debriefing the two weeks of field work. Tomorrow we head North to Ndjamena. I feel that this is the right time to share with you impressions and facts from those last intense and beautiful days. I'd like to start first with the vitality, the energy the EUROSHA project created. Especially that of the Team who had been engaged in the 4 days October training in Plaisians (France) at the premises of the Group URD. There is something simple, strong and beautiful in the way those 26 young individuals decided to volunteer 6 months of their lives. Their energy was communicative and worked as a fuel keeping us up to speed. It has an even a stronger effect when experienced during a deployment.

Beginning Workshop Debrief

Posted by Katrina E. on Oct, 29 2012

Debrief of Beginning Workshops Last week we finished our Beginning OSM workshops for BPBD staff, local non-government organizations, and university in six provinces that are high risk for disasters. AIFDR and BPBD are mapping in these six provinces (East Java, West Java, South Sulawesi, West Papua, South Sumatra and NTT) to see if OpenStreetMap can become the platform for gathering valuable information in Indonesia. Here is what our team had to say about the beginning workshops: [inline:image.jpg] Roses: Offline Editor: We found out that most people are interested in using JOSM. More complete Maps: New buildings and roads are now traced.