Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

Updated Jan 15, 2021

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

https://www.hotosm.org/

Rebecca Firth

Crowdsourcing, digital map creation, participatory mapping, community-led development, humanitarian response, open data and tech.

Our innovation is a social model which involves HOT (the organization), open-source technology, partnerships, and most importantly, a community-led movement: 1. We democratize the mapping process, providing simple technology for people to contribute their local knowledge to maps. We do this through ensuring communities have the technology and skills to lead on mapping their communities. 2. W...

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Stage 5: Scaling

HOT is scaling up its support to local mapping communities with the aim of mapping an area home to one billion people living in poverty and at high risk of disaster in 94 countries.

Registered in United States as Non-Profit

Focus Areas:

Humanitarian Assistance, GIS/Mapping, Crowdsourcing and Open Source and 35 MoreSEE ALL

Employees

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Problem

One billion people live in places that do not appear on maps. Without maps, people are not even considered in critical decisions that will save or improve their lives. There is an urgent need for a free, open, and comprehensive map of the world. This problem manifests in two critical contexts: 1) Crisis response: When disasters and crises occur, humanitarians must quickly answer a set of basic questions for an effective response. 2) Providing essential services: Accurate, up-to-date data is a basic foundation for any development program.

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Solution

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) aims to create a world where every place and every person exists on the map. Our solution combines the latest technology with a global volunteer base, mapping vulnerable communities and putting data into the hands of decision-makers. With this open-source, up-to-date free and digital public good, information will be available to make better and faster decisions. As a result, missing maps will no longer be a factor in human suffering or loss of life.

Target Beneficiaries

One billion women, men, and children in the most at-risk places — those who are affected by disaster or are multidimensionally poor and lacking basic services. The target population includes all genders and ages, based in the following 94 countries: https://www.hotosm.org/updates/four-regions-five-years-94-countries-one-billion-people/. Our goals include that women and girls are fully represented on the map.

Mission and Vision

To promote, support and advocate the creation, maintenance, use, distribution and availability of free, geographically-referenced data and geospatial information to facilitate and provide humanitarian aid and to permit faster and more efficient means to relieve poverty and foster economic development.

Competitive Advantage

This innovation is: 1. Community-led - one billion people have the opportunity to put themselves on the map. Traditionally, mapping is done to people; we enable people to map themselves, because if we continue to allow our map to be driven by commercial or government interests, places without those interests will remain invisible. 2. Open-source - all data will be available publicly in OpenStreetMap. With this open, up-to-date digital public good, information will be readily available to make better and faster decisions. As this data is open, the possibilities of impact are limitless. 3. Free - Commercial maps are driven primarily by revenue from advertising and data sales, meaning few maps extend to vulnerable places. In these places, people suffer simply due to a lack of a business case. We are using the only free and open global map: OpenStreetMap. 4. Powered by a movement - a global volunteer base of 279,000+ to date

Planned Goals and Milestones

An area home to 150 million people mapped. The impact of this is: Public Health: 43 million people: Vaccinations, maternal health, etc. Disaster preparedness and response: 39 million people - Hurricanes, tropical storms, earthquakes, etc. Sustainable cities: 8.5 million people: Better city infrastructure, transport, sanitation, urban planning, etc. Refugee response: 8.1 million people: Supporting refugee crises 51 million people: Poverty elimination, gender equality, water and sanitation etc.