MAPGIVE: DRAWING OUR RESOURCES TOGETHER
Narrator: In 2010, after an earthquake
in Haiti, online volunteers became part
of a movement that is creating a free and
open digital map of the world.
Mikel Maron: In an emergency, you just
need data from wherever you have it.
Justine MacKinnon: “It's important that
the information is open and available to
everyone, because some situations we
don't know it's going to happen
it's a surprise.”
Narrator: “What is Remote Mapping?"
Shadrock Roberts: “Remote mapping is
sort of an interesting new phenomena
that's happened probably since about 2010.
In Haiti, we saw a real push of
volunteers on-line to help create map data
where none existed before.”
Narrator: “Map data helps humanitarian
efforts; not just in a crisis.
It helps communities like Kibera in
Nairobi, Kenya prepare, develop, and
respond to needs at the local level.
It's a big job and not every place
is mapped like we may believe.
Kepha Ngito: “Developing or establishing
data is a very huge step in kicking off
the process of changing things,
and that is the point
at which the maps become very useful.”
Dale Kunce: “When the typhoon happened we
realized there were no good maps of the
Philippines. That there needed to be maps
so that our personnel would know where to
go and what they would find when they
got there. So we partnered with the
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team to help
them and help us build out a base
map of the Philippines.
Narrator: “Think of OpenStreetMap
as Wikipedia for maps.”
Mikel Maron: “OpenStreetMap is a
free and open map of the entire world.
It's primarily edited by volunteers.
We create everything in the commons it's
completely open and available for
anyone to contribute and anyone to use.”
Narrator: “How do volunteers help?”
Shadrock Roberts: “The way that a
volunteer can help is by looking at
satellite imagery and picking out
different predefined objects and saying OK
I can see a house, I can trace the edges
of that house.
I see a road I can trace the line of that
road, I see an edge of a forest
I can trace the edge of that forest.”
Narrator: “MapGive is making it easier for
new online volunteers to take those
first steps in helping build an open,
free map of the world
and become digital humanitarians.”
Narrator: “Learn how to map in three
steps. Get an OpenStreetMap account.
Practice mapping. Then, get connected
with a task on the MapGive site.
You'll get the skills to map...what you'll
give helps communities around the world.”
Joshua Campbell: “The value of the
geographic data created in OpenStreetMap
for humanitarian response has already been
compelling. The amount of information that
has been produced and the utility it has
rendered to the humanitarian community is
a game—changer in humanitarian response.”
Dale Kunce: “For the typhoon response
we've had almost 16 hundred volunteers do
something like 4.5 million edits to the
base map just for the Philippines. And
those 16 hundred volunteers represent
some 3 to 4 years of dedicated mapping
that one person would be able to do.
Narrator: “We're asking the question:
what if there were more online MapGivers?”
Joshua Campbell: “What could happen if we
had 10 times the amount of volunteers?
50 times the amount of volunteers?
How many areas could we map? How
much good could we do in this process?”
Narrator: “Let's find out how much good
we can do. MapGive today.”