Post by robert on Nov 30, 2015 19:41:41 GMT 5.5
Hi all,
Apologies for cross-posting with talk-lk but I'm unsure which channel is more appropriate. I gather that this forum is more heavily used.
I'm copy-pasting below my message to talk-lk from earlier today. But after reading some of the comments in the shoutbox I want to add the following;
1) We desperately want to respect other features outside of our project. We know we haven't done a perfect job of that yet and we're hoping you can help us strengthen our work so we improve, not destroy, what you've already done.
2) We really want to motivate the young mappers we employ and the students we're training at a few universities. Your involvement would really help us do that and could grow this community.
3) As Thilina suggests, we have our own method of analyzing the data we're creating. It's called InaSafe and it's an open source plugin to QGIS: inasafe.org/. This is a tool that's been proven to work in Indonesia and other countries.
Full, initial message below:
My name is Robert Banick and I work for the World Bank's Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI). I'm part of a team that aims to build up the OpenStreetMap community in South Asia and use the resulting data to better prepare for disasters, among other things. I'm an active OSM contributor outside of my day job too: I'm a longtime member of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team and do as much with OSM as I reasonably can in my spare time. I'm as committed to making OSM awesome as the rest of you.
My OpenDRI team has done a lot with OpenStreetMap in Sri Lanka over the past few years. Some of you may have heard of our project in Batticaloa (http://reliefweb.int/report/world/planning-open-cities-mapping-project), which was successful enough to warrant a second, bigger project. That project is now underway in the Attangalu Oya River Basin, where we're mapping all the homes and infrastructure at risk from the flooding of the Attanagalu river.
The main purpose of the project is to create good open data the government can use for disaster management. But a secondary goal is to support the Sri Lankan OpenStreetMap community and connect it (where useful) to the Sri Lankan government.
I'd really like to involve you all more in our work and give you an opportunity to shape it. We know that when our project is done and over you will still be here, adding to the map and making it wonderful.
I have two questions for you all:
1) Would any of you all be willing to come to our office in Tudella sometime in the next two weeks and give some instructions to our junior tracers about the finer points of OSM? I'd really like them to learn about routing applications and other details of doing OSM well. I'd also like them to get an idea about OSM as a community and hopefully motivate them to keep doing OSM once this project ends.
2) Would any of you all be willing to join a mapathon we're trying to host at the University of Colombo the second week of December? We're inviting students to join us for an all day mapping party that will trace our project area. It's another good opportunity to connect newcomers to the OSM-LK community and improve the quality of the mapping work.
We'll probably be doing additional mapathons in the future that involve more use of Field Papers and site visits. That way students can see the "on the ground" aspect of OSM and get excited about that too.
Finally, if any of you are interested in learning about the new OpenMapKit technology developed by the American Red Cross, we'll be using it in our project and are happy to offer informal trainings to you all during business hours.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you all.
With all the best,
Robert and the team
Apologies for cross-posting with talk-lk but I'm unsure which channel is more appropriate. I gather that this forum is more heavily used.
I'm copy-pasting below my message to talk-lk from earlier today. But after reading some of the comments in the shoutbox I want to add the following;
1) We desperately want to respect other features outside of our project. We know we haven't done a perfect job of that yet and we're hoping you can help us strengthen our work so we improve, not destroy, what you've already done.
2) We really want to motivate the young mappers we employ and the students we're training at a few universities. Your involvement would really help us do that and could grow this community.
3) As Thilina suggests, we have our own method of analyzing the data we're creating. It's called InaSafe and it's an open source plugin to QGIS: inasafe.org/. This is a tool that's been proven to work in Indonesia and other countries.
Full, initial message below:
My name is Robert Banick and I work for the World Bank's Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI). I'm part of a team that aims to build up the OpenStreetMap community in South Asia and use the resulting data to better prepare for disasters, among other things. I'm an active OSM contributor outside of my day job too: I'm a longtime member of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team and do as much with OSM as I reasonably can in my spare time. I'm as committed to making OSM awesome as the rest of you.
My OpenDRI team has done a lot with OpenStreetMap in Sri Lanka over the past few years. Some of you may have heard of our project in Batticaloa (http://reliefweb.int/report/world/planning-open-cities-mapping-project), which was successful enough to warrant a second, bigger project. That project is now underway in the Attangalu Oya River Basin, where we're mapping all the homes and infrastructure at risk from the flooding of the Attanagalu river.
The main purpose of the project is to create good open data the government can use for disaster management. But a secondary goal is to support the Sri Lankan OpenStreetMap community and connect it (where useful) to the Sri Lankan government.
I'd really like to involve you all more in our work and give you an opportunity to shape it. We know that when our project is done and over you will still be here, adding to the map and making it wonderful.
I have two questions for you all:
1) Would any of you all be willing to come to our office in Tudella sometime in the next two weeks and give some instructions to our junior tracers about the finer points of OSM? I'd really like them to learn about routing applications and other details of doing OSM well. I'd also like them to get an idea about OSM as a community and hopefully motivate them to keep doing OSM once this project ends.
2) Would any of you all be willing to join a mapathon we're trying to host at the University of Colombo the second week of December? We're inviting students to join us for an all day mapping party that will trace our project area. It's another good opportunity to connect newcomers to the OSM-LK community and improve the quality of the mapping work.
We'll probably be doing additional mapathons in the future that involve more use of Field Papers and site visits. That way students can see the "on the ground" aspect of OSM and get excited about that too.
Finally, if any of you are interested in learning about the new OpenMapKit technology developed by the American Red Cross, we'll be using it in our project and are happy to offer informal trainings to you all during business hours.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you all.
With all the best,
Robert and the team