‘The Problem
With countless agencies now operating in Africa to combat Ebola’s consistent climb upwards, medical personnel operating there are finding out they face unique challenges in Africa. I experienced much of what they’re going through while stationed in Korea my first tour as a security advisor and driver. At the time, the biggest obstacle I faced was getting around Seoul. While I had the benefit of transliterated maps, I would have killed for a GPS unit. Relief workers in Africa are facing a similar dilemma. Most people don’t realize how much of the African urban and rural settings are not mapped. There are entire road networks and villages no map has officially recognized. In a situation where you have to make contact with every single potential victim, being able to safely navigate to them is paramount.
The Solution
So how do we make sure we have the areas are mapped? Well, by way of open source mapping. In other words, citizen volunteers sit at computers and outline and label every nuance of interest to aid organizations. Once the citizen volunteers do their part, validators spot-check your work and send off the information you collected that was accurate and send back anything you sent off that was wrong. In the entire timeframe of instruction to operation, I mapped over 17 buildings and a few roads. Shortly before writing this post, I mapped 7 roads and 3 foot paths. Total time to do all of this was roughly 30 minutes with only an hour and half worth of instruction. Most importantly, the software this is done on is free and open-source.
How-to
I know you’re curious how you can do the same thing. At least you should be. If you don’t think you should be, call me and I’ll explain rather vigorously. So here’s how to get started.
- Go to http://www.openstreetmap.org and sign-up for an account. Once your email is confirmed, then follow Step 2.
- Go to http://task.hotosm.org to see the open tasks for humanitarian groups working on Ebola.
- Before accepting any tasks, I HIGHLY suggest you go to http://wiki.openstreetmap.org and read the articles on how to navgate and what exactly the various terrain feature labels correspond to visually on a map.
- Once you’re done there, go back to http://task.hotosm.org and find your tasks.
- Click on the task you want and then go to the side map and click on an are that is not “done” or “validated”. It should be the grid with no coloring. Once you click there, look to the left sidebar and you should see where it says start mapping, click there.
- Next, click on the arrow next to where it says “Edit with” and go to iD Browser. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.
- From there a map should have opened up in another browser where you will do your edits.
- Find your area and zoom in on areas where there’s a lack of data and outlines are not done for features.
- Click on either the line or poly pointers at the top menu bar and then outline the shapes of what you’re tasked. When done, click on the last point of the shape again. If necessary, click on any line in the shape to bring up a mini-menu that will “square” edges away.
- When you feel like you’re done, click on the save button at the top menu bar. Feel free to leave a comment in the sidebar. I was told to put “task-whatever the number was-hotosm – whatever feature the task called for” Go back to original hotosm screen and make sure you “unlock” this map so others can work on it. Before you unlock, be sure to leave a comment stating what you did.
http://wiki.openstreetmaps.org
http://www.openstreetmap.org
http://mapgive.state.gov
http://task.hotosm.org
That’s it. Easy peasy. By the end of the day, you will have helped out relief efforts in perhaps one of the biggest public health crises the world has seen in a while. Give it a whirl and let me know what you think. Also, share this information with other people.
