Upon getting the news of being awarded a scholarship to attend and participate in the State of the Map Tanzania 2023, I was so excited to travel since it was my first time to visit Tanzania. I thank God that I made it to the conference which commenced on the 20th-23rd of January.

My highlights from the first day were from the Resilience Academy I was amazed by the tremendous work they do to impact the society through collaboration and partnerships to train young people with skills and knowledge to achieve the country’s sustainable development goals. My evening was sparked when I toured around the neighborhood I noticed that the transport system was properly planned with easy access and convenience.

The lightning talks were very insightful as people shared their experiences in OpenStreetMap and how they have been able to grow their communities. I realized that Tanzania has a wide network of mappers whereby they have established and promoted youth mapping chapters within their universities as compared to my country therefore I learned that more effort to grow our community here in Uganda is key in order to achieve the designed goals for the country with the use of OpenStreetMap.

I got a chance to participate in the Advanced QGIS training with the trainers Ian Coady and Steve Penson who did an amazing job teaching us the course exhaustively. I learnt a lot and I plan to use the knowledge to advance in my career. I was also given an opportunity to present the application of photomapping in OpenStreetMap with the use of Mapillary. https://youtu.be/OgoRLDUNhHQ

Meeting the Geochicas (women in Geospatial) was enlightening, we got to share experiences and the way forward to expand the number of women in this sector. The conference gathered many people from different parts of the world. Interacting and engaging with them broadened my thinking scope from their experiences in OpenStreetMap and beyond. I made so many friends and am grateful for having them join my network.

I would like to thank the organizers of the conference for giving me the scholarship to be part of the many great minds in OpenStreetMap and my people in Uganda for their overwhelming support.

Photos; https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1chBIB4oVMl85f1zsdms-AulbWWa5VY-0