text: Learning from HOT Indonesia | OpenStreetMap Indonesia
  Published by Geoffrey Kateregga at Thursday January 26th, 2017
  From 8th to 29th January 2017, I am visiting HOT Indonesia in a Knowledge Exchange Program. Up to now, HOT has executed two projects in East Africa, the Ramani Huria – Community Mapping for Flood Resilience Project in Tanzania and the Mapping Financial Inclusion Project in Uganda.
  The Mapping Financial Inclusion project in Uganda also engaged university students in mapping financial services in 22 districts in Eastern Uganda as well the capital Kampala. Through the program more than 200 students were trained and equipped with the necessary skills, equipment, and other resources to collect data and mapped more than 14,000 Financial Service provider access points, 5,000 schools and 1,000 health facilities into OpenStreetMap.
  In all its mapping projects, HOT develops local capacity in the use of OSM and OpenSource GIS tools through partnerships with Universities and engaging students who become part of the growing OSM communities. In Uganda for example there are now 5 active Youth Mappers Chapters/ HOT University Clubs who continue organising mapping events at their universities and participate in Remote Mapping projects. With assistance from HOT, the local OSM Community in Uganda has now set up a Non Government Organisation (NGO) – Map Uganda that will continue doing projects around OSM and grow the use of Open Source GIS tools in the country as well as use of Open Data.
  One aspect of the mapping in Tanzania that would be useful to Indonesia is the use of Drones to generate Aerial Imagery. In the Tanzania project we used eBee drones to generate aerial imagery covering over 100 km2, at a 3 cm per pixel resolution. The drone produces imagery at a lower cost and is not affected by cloud cover since it flies at a lower altitude. However it has to be mentioned that it is a still a challenge flying drones in some countries because of strict laws against their use like for the case of Uganda.
  One of the most important things that I am learning from the HOT Indonesia team is Web Mapping using opensource platforms like GIS Cloud, Ushahidi, and Drupal to build systems for reporting incidences of disasters like flooding, fire breakouts, falling trees and social conflicts. An example is the Jakarta Disaster Reporting system which uses Geo Data Collect (GDC) and GIS Cloud to report disasters. As compared to the printed maps, the web maps are more interactive and can be used to tell stories, answer questions and deliver timely information.
  This year, the OSM Africa Community is organising the first ever State of the Map Africa conference which will happen in Kampala – Uganda in July 2017. It will be an opportunity people from all over across Africa to share experiences and thanks to the HOT projects in Africa, there will be a lot to share at the event. Everyone from the global OSM community is welcome to join us as we celebrate OpenStreetMap on the African Continent.