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When Hurricane Maria
hit Puerto Rico in 2017,

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we all watched as a disaster
played out on our screens.

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At least 160,000 people were displaced,

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and nearly 3,000 people died.

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Electricity was cut off
to the entire island,

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and some neighborhoods
didn't get power back for 11 months.

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Many of those watching
didn't know how to help.

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Some donated to international NGOs.

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Some lobbied their elected officials.

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But as with so many crises,

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so many of us simply gave in
and felt helpless.

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At the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team,

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also known as HOT,

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we did something different.

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We mobilized 6,000 volunteers
across the world

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who mapped every home
and every road in Puerto Rico.

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And here you can see the maps
those volunteers made taking shape.

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Responders then used those maps
to assess the state of buildings and roads

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and to provide emergency funds,
WiFi and phone-charging points

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to people whose homes were damaged.

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All crises,

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including the COVID-19 pandemic
we're living through right now,

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have devastating characteristics.

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But many of them have one thing in common:

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the people hit the hardest are often
literally not on the map.

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Right now, more than one billion people
live in places that are not mapped.

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If you look those places up online,

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you'll see nothing but a blank.

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And that blank isn't just
a huge statement of disrespect

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to our fellow human beings,

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it's an injustice,

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causing very direct, very real
and very avoidable human suffering.

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So what does not being
on the digital map actually look like?

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I live in Peru, and a few months ago,

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some community health workers
asked us to help them map.

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Obviously, where they were wasn't mapped,

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so to get there, we asked
a local mayor to draw the route.

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This is what he drew.

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This piece of paper
was hard to follow. (Laughs)

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We didn't really know
what these lines were.

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He put some numbers on there
that he assured us were travel times,

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but as we were driving along,

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these did not correspond to our reality.

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But this isn't about me getting lost

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or about shaming
someone's bad drawing skills.

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Think how inefficient it is
to manage a team

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who need to work in this place

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without a map to tell them
where they need to go.

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Then, once they're in the right village,

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how can they collect some data
and associate it to that place?

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Those community health workers
know that needs in this region are high,

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particularly anemia
and malnutrition among children.

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They just don't know
where those children are,

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or what is causing that problem.

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They want to be able to locate
the home of every child under five,

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but how can they do that without a map?

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After a brief training,
we went out to make a map,

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and this is what those community
health workers produced.

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This map has everything
you need to navigate,

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like the rivers and bridges,

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but it also has every local landmark,
the school, the football pitch, the plaza.

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And I'm pleased to say
that a few weeks ago,

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we got a call from
those community health workers,

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and they're using this map
in their response containing COVID-19.

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So you might be thinking:

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Why aren't these places
on commercial maps?

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In short, mapping the most
vulnerable places in our world

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just hasn't been a priority
for for-profit companies,

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whose business models typically rely
on advertising and data sales.

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This leaves out the poorest communities

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and means that individual
aid organizations create maps

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for the small areas
that they're working in

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in offline systems which rapidly
become out-of-date when a project ends.

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So what we have here
is a lack of easily shareable

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and easily updatable data.

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But we also have a solution.

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We map with a tool
called OpenStreetMap,

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which was founded in 2006

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and is a free, open-source tool
which anyone can use to map the world.

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Just as anyone can read or edit
an article on Wikipedia,

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anyone can use or edit
the map in OpenStreetMap,

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and the resulting map is public good,

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free and open for anyone to use,

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creating one map for all of us.

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It works in two phases.

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Buildings and roads might not
be on the map yet,

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but you can see them clearly
in satellite imagery.

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Volunteers working anywhere in the world
turn satellite images into maps

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through drawing the buildings and roads

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on top of them.

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We call this a base map.

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On average, each time a volunteer logs in,

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they map an area less than
10 kilometers squared,

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but add all those contributions together,

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and you can map entire cities
in just a couple of days.

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And second, local mapping.

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People living and working
in the places we're mapping

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take that base map and color it in,

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for example, identifying:
Is this building a school or a hospital?

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Those people add information
you can't see in a satellite image.

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We found people able and eager to map

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in even the most challenging
situations worldwide,

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and we've optimized the tools
to work on smartphones

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costing as little as 30 dollars.

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Additionally, the tools work offline,

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so people without regular access
to cell service can still contribute,

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adding things to the map
as they go about their daily lives,

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and then uploading when they get access
to cell service or WiFi.

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In 10 years, we've seen people
from all walks of life take part.

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Refugees have mapped broken water points.

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Rural women have added place names
in Indigenous languages.

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And, in doing so, people become
active agents of change

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in their communities.

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Since 2010, HOT has engaged
over 200,000 volunteers

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who have mapped an area
home to more than 150 million people

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in OpenStreetMap.

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Those maps have been used
by search and rescue operations

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to free hundreds of people
trapped in collapsed buildings

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after the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

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They've been used to provide
polio vaccinations to children

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across all of rural Nigeria.

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And they've mapped the camps,
routes and new homes

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of more than eight million refugees
fleeing South Sudan, Syria and Venezuela.

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We work with the biggest
humanitarian organizations in the world

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to make sure these maps have impact --

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the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières,
UNICEF to name a few --

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and we currently have a queue
of more than 2,000 places

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needing to be mapped.

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So that's the story so far.

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But wouldn't it be great
if these places were on the map

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before they were in crisis?

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Now we're ready for a step change.

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Over the past few years,

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we've gained access to global,
regularly updated satellite imagery.

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Machine learning and AI
are helping human mappers

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to work more efficiently.

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And worldwide, more and more people
are willing and able

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to map their communities.

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Over the next five years,

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we'll engage one million volunteers
who will map an area

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home to the one billion
most vulnerable people

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across 94 countries.

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To achieve this,

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we need to do three things.

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First, we need to grow our community
to one million mappers,

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who will build a world
where everyone everywhere is represented.

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We'll set up a network of regional hubs

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to train and support those volunteers

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to map the vulnerable places
in their own countries.

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Second, we need to invest in technology.

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Right now, you can add something
like a building or a local landmark

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to the map in just a few seconds,

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but learning to map

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and mapping easily
and quickly on a mobile

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can be a problem.

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We need to invest in technologies

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to make mobile edits to the map
possible at a massive scale.

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And third, we need to raise awareness.

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Aid projects across the world need to know

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that these maps are free
and available for them to use

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and that they can request maps
for the areas that they're working in.

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For me, this is one of the most
wonderful things about this project.

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It isn't really about HOT
or any single organization.

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It's about creating a foundation

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on which so many
organizations will thrive.

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Whatever we do,

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disasters and crises will still happen,

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and humanitarians
will still respond to them.

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Development programs will continue,

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but without maps,
they'll lack critical information

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about what to expect in the community
before they get there.

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With open, free, up-to-date maps,

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those programs will have more impact
than they would do otherwise,

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leading to a meaningful difference
in lives saved or improved.

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But it's so much more than that.

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It's 2020, and one billion people
in our world are not visible.

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That's wrong.

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This is a tool through which
every citizen of Planet Earth

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can become known and seen,

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to literally be put on the map.

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My peers complain about being
too overconnected,

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so how can it be possible
for more than a billion people

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to remain invisible?

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Luckily, this is a problem
even the laziest among us

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can help to solve.

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If you can swipe left or right,

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you can help.

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Map this morning

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and influence life-changing
decisions this afternoon.

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Frontline health workers and humanitarians
are literally waiting for you.

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Thank you.