The UN GGIM Academic Network invites you to participate in a UN Mappers mapathon on 30 March 2022. The aim is to raise awareness of UN missions and how they use open data sources for them, and to inspire students to contribute to these efforts. Apart from learning how to contribute to data for UN missions, participating in the UN-GGIM Academic Network Mapathon will also give you insight into OpenStreetMap data and for which purposes it could be useful.
Join us here: http://tiny.cc/UN-GGIM-Mapathon
Starting time: 6:00 UTC (8:00 CEST)
Ending time: 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST)
Please download and fill in this form to register to the event, and kindly send back the form to unggim.academicnetwork@gmail.com (please indicate ‘UN-GGIM Academic Network Mapathon 2022’ in the subject of your email).
UN Mappers is a community of mapping enthusiasts collaborating to collect, validate and disseminate geospatial open data in areas where the United Nations carry field operations with the goal of supporting the decision-making process with more accurate location-based data. UN Mappers is part of Unite Maps, an initiative aiming at enriching topographic and operational data in UN missions and providing peacekeeping and humanitarian actors with better topographic maps, operational geo-information, search and navigation tools, and imagery and street-level base maps. UN Mappers is open to everyone. Support peace and security with open mapping and join our community!
Introductory workshop on 22 February 2022: video available here.
For those of you who have not participated in a UN-GGIM Academic Network Mapathon before, there will be a one hour introductory workshop on 22 February 2022, presented twice to accommodate different time zones:
7:00 – 8:00 UTC https://tinyurl.com/UNGGIM7UTC
16:00 – 17:00 UTC https://tinyurl.com/UNGGIM16UTC
Michael Montani (UN Mappers), Maria A Brovelli (Chair: UN GGIM Academic Network) and Serena Coetzee (Africa Regional representative: UN GGIM Academic Network) will introduce you to OpenStreetMap, show you how to conduct a mapathon and the benefits achieved by some past UN Mappers mapathons. The workshop will prepare you so that you can guide your students or colleagues to participate in the UN-GGIM Academic Network Mapathonon 30 March.
A mapathon (literally “map marathon”) is a collaborative effort to improve OpenStreetMap data, very often for humanitarian purposes, in places where OpenStreetMap data is scarce or non-existent. During the mapathon, volunteers from various backgrounds get together to remotely map a specific area using satellite imagery or aerial photographs. Anyone can participate in a mapathon, no prerequisite geography or geomatics knowledge is required.
Stay tuned for more information on UN-GGIM Academic Network Mapathon on 30 March 2022!
Closer to the date, a link to join the UN-GGIM Academic Network Mapathon on 30 March 2022 will be distributed and published at http://unggim.academicnetwork.org/newsevents (this site).
The Mapathon will be open for 24 hours and a zoom meeting will be available where questions can be asked and progress will be shared. You can participate and contribute data for any period of time during the 24 hours. Colleagues or students often arrange to get together to contribute data to OpenStreetMap for a few hours in the same venue (physically or virtually).
If you have any questions about the introductory workshop or the mapathon, you are welcome to contact Maria maria.brovelli@polimi.it or Serena serena.coetzee@up.ac.za.
We are encouraging you to distribute the information across your networks – find the Mapathon flyer for your convenience here.
We are looking forward to seeing you all there!