I was very excited since I first knew that I was one of the people who got the opportunity to attend the State of the Map Asia through a scholarship program. This year’s State of the Map Asia was held in Dhaka, Bangladesh on November 1-2, 2019. Then I rushed prepared the documents required so I can get my visa processed as soon as possible. Fortunately, there were other two scholars from my office, HOT Indonesia, They are Yeni Primasari and Tri Selasa so that we can prepare visa supporting documents and apply for the visa together.

The State of the Map Asia 2019 was held at the Krishibid Institution Bangladesh (KIB) Dhaka, Bangladesh. The event was attended by various participants from students, academics, companies and the OSM community who were interested in open data and OpenStreetMap. Every day there are many sessions held in parallel in different rooms. There are several types of sessions available such as presentations, lightning talk, panelist discussions, and workshops. Sometimes I feel confused every time I have to choose which session I will attend because almost all sessions offer very interesting themes.

I also have the opportunity to share one of the projects that are currently running in Indonesia, namely Indonesia Road Mapping that collaborated between HOT Indonesia with Facebook. I filled one of the Lightning Talk sessions with the title The Importance of Ground Truth Method in Indonesia Road Mapping Project. That was my first experience to be able to share knowledge about mapping in front of extraordinary people in English. I’m also very grateful to my friends and other conference participants who are already sharing their knowledge and practice. Really through this event, I was reminded that out there are still a lot of great people, creative people and people who have worked hard to build a mapping community in their area. Many positive things can be taken and learned, making me feel to keep learning and working.

Here, I met and became acquainted with many new people from another country and I’m so happy with that. And then, I also thankful for Sawan Shariar, and the entire committee, volunteer, and organizer who made this great event. I am very grateful to have the chance to attend this conference. I would be very glad if I have another chance to attend the next SotM Asia 2020 that will be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka or another conference in the future.

Warm greetings,

-Silvi-