In follow-up to my last post: HOT 2014 Review, here is a brief post regarding my aspirations for 2015.

Continued contribution to mapping

• I’d like to increase my HOT mapping activities throughout 2015, contributing to more projects, and contributing more significant task content in those projects.
• Continued and increased contribution to global mapping in areas with low map detail but sufficient imagery to contribute. I’ve previously contributed significantly in Ghana and Burma and i’d like to keep up these contributions and engage with local mappers to offer assistance.

Assisting with new mapping techniques

• Enhancing before/after intelligence to HOT tasks. This could be useful for tasks in places like Gaza where there is focus on mapping change over a period of time (i.e. before & after the bombing of 2014)
• Automated feature extraction & change detection with visual checking steps. Viewed by many as an unattainable goal for OSM, but i believe there can be a certain level to be gained in OSM by these techniques. This will most likely involve Python and JavaScript libraries to create some kind of prototypical solution.

Community involvement

• Engage and assist newbie mappers in Ghana. I did some of this a few years ago, but would like to get involved again and offer any assistance i can.
• OSM Events & Conferences. I’d like to make it to and potentially present at a variety of events this year including SOTM, GeoMob, OSM London etc..

Happy New Year and good luck mapping,

Sam Larsen

The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

Greetings, this is a brief recap of my contributions to the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) in 2014.

HOT Community Relations

HOT emails over the last 18 months have become quite counter-productive and personal. I feel as though we have lost our way as a constructive contributory community. For that reason i have stopped reading them, it has also affected how much i interact with the community and alarmingly how much i contribute to HOT mapping tasks. I’d like this community to be a bit more constructive and work together. For my part, i will not create unnecessary noise on shared communication channels and attempt to set an example by chipping away at a few areas i feel i can add value to.

HOT Mapping Contributions

• January 2014 #400 - South Sudan, Upper Nile State, Malakal
• January 2014 #396 - South Sudan, Unity State, Bentiu
• January 2014 #395 - South Sudan, Jeglei, Bor
• January 2014 #397 - Central African Republic/République Centrafricaine, Haut-Mbomou, Zémio
• August 2014 #611 - Gaza-Strip-2014

Reduced involvement in HOT

Over the last two years i have been less involved in HOT due to a number of factors

1. I was somewhat disenchanted by the membership process within HOT, i felt a lot of the organisation around members and voting went some way to making it a less inclusive closed group - which was a big attraction when i first started mapping for HOT during the Haiti Earthquake.
2. Having a 1 year old child
3. Increased pressures and responsibility in my professional career. Ironically i have been working on a large mapping task management system for government and i was able to use some of the ideas from HOT and the tasking manager to achieve this goal.

Regrettably i was unable to contribute to any Ebola mapping tasks in West Africa as i had sever pressures on my time throughout most of this year although i would have loved to contribute and i’ll continue to push myself to make at least a minor mapping effort in the future.

Sincerely,

Sam Larsen

The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team