Missing Maps had its two year anniversary back in November, coinciding with OSMGeoWeek. Over those two years, the Missing Maps process has led volunteers to build out a better map through OpenStreetMap, and the vision behind it has become an integral part of how we as Missing Maps members approach our work.
Since its launch in 2014, the Missing Maps partnership has grown from four original partners to a large and committed community of NGOs, academic institutions, companies, and most of all, individual mappers. Since our launch, we’ve added some amazing new members, all of whom have committed to the goals and ethics of Missing Maps.:
Over the past two years, we registered thousands of users and held mapathons in 47 countries! Many groups hosted regular events, with mapathons held monthly in London, Prague, and DC.
A highlight of 2016 was conducting extensive field mapping with local volunteers in the border areas of West Africa. They completed field surveys in 7,200 villages and added health facilities, water points, and community resources to OpenStreetMap.
Remote mappers played a significant role in helping save lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During a yellow fever emergency response, mapped data aided planning and logistics to vaccinate 700,000 people.
The MapSwipe app was also launched in 2016. Using fast satellite image classification on mobile devices, users can rapidly identify population clusters to better target mapping. So far, over 13,000 users have identified over 9 million features.
It’s amazing for us to look back and see how much we’ve accomplished together as a community. On behalf of all the Missing Maps partners, thanks to each and every volunteer who’s helped with the mapping and contributed to the project - we couldn’t do it without you!
Two-Year Update. CC-BY Missing Maps