August | 2022 | OpenStreetMap Blog

*Cake for OpenStreetMap’s 18th anniversary, celebrated by OSM Bangladesh at BSMRSTU (Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University). Photo by Sawan Shariar, CC-BY-SA 4.0*

This Sunday, 7th of August 2022,
we are celebrating 18 years of OpenStreetMap!

Celebrations started the previous week and will continue for one more week. So, how do you plan to celebrate? 🙂

Planning to organise an online or in-person event? Please add your event to the OSM wiki! If wiki editing isn’t your thing, email communication@osmfoundation.org with your event details and we’ll add it 🙂

Making a birthday cake? See previous examples of OSM cakes for inspiration. Don’t forget the attribution!

You could post why you love OpenStreetMap 🙂 Remember to use the hashtag #OpenStreetMap18 on social media.

Posting photos of celebrations? If your photos are accompanied with the text “CC-BY-SA 4.0” (or another open license), we can add them to the OSM wiki (or feel free to add them yourself! ~ register here).

Or you could post a photo of yourself holding a written message 🙂

Planning an online party or mapathon?

You can use the BigBlueButton video server of the OpenStreetMap Foundation! To get a free account and your own video room, please signup.

You can use your video room even after the birthday, for any OSM-related event.
Community members in low-bandwidth environments may benefit from using BigBlueButton’s low-bandwidth settings.
Please add your event to the OSM wiki! If wiki editing isn’t your thing, email communication@osmfoundation.org with your event details and we’ll add it 🙂

Join us!

Observance of the anniversary of the creation of OpenStreetMap is held on or about the 9th of August, which is the anniversary of the registration of the OpenStreetMap.org domain name. The concept of OpenStreetMap predates the domain name registration, but that seems a suitable anniversary date 🙂

Happy celebrations everyone 🙂

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Do you want to translate this and other blogposts in another language..? Please send an email to communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [language]

OpenStreetMap was founded in 2004 and is an international project to create a free map of the world. To do so, we, thousands of volunteers, collect data about roads, railways, rivers, forests, buildings, and a lot more worldwide. Our map data can be downloaded for free by everyone and used for any purpose – including commercial usage. It is possible to produce your own maps which highlight certain features, calculate routes, etc. OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps that can be very quickly, or easily, updated.

Are you attending State of the Map in person (in Italy) or online? Here are some ideas on how to actively participate/contribute to the conference in person or online!

1. Help out as a volunteer

Volunteers are the driving force of OSM and SotM conference. Would you like to help by volunteering to ensure the SotM is as smooth as possible? Here are the roles you can help with:

In-person Volunteers (Note: You must be physically present in Italy)

Conference setup (volunteers must be already at 18 August available)
teardown/clean up
registration/info desk
video/recording
video/cutting
technical assistants for the speakers
Session hosts (OSM knowledge is mandatory)

Online Volunteers

the info desk at Venueless
technical assistants for the BBB rooms

If you are interested in volunteering, please reach out to the SotM Working Group via sotm [at] openstreetmap [dot] org and sign up at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2022/volunteers#Schedule

2. Submit a lightning talk

Share a 5-minute talk about your mapping initiatives/experiences in OpenStreetMap or about your local community activities to the global OpenStreetMap community! Sign up at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2022/registration_lightning_talks

Deadline for submission is ~~12 August 2022~~ 16 August 2022

3. For technique-oriented people, you can help as part of the video team!

Please reach out to the SotM Working Group via sotm [at] openstreetmap [dot] org

4. Be the SotM 2022 photographer(s)

The person(s) could generally take some photos in the name of SotM organization team and also should take the group photo. We kindly as ask the released photos have CC licence (*) so we can use them later in the SotM context.

(*) under an open license (CC-BY-SA 3.0 or later recommended or CC0)

5. Organize a self-organized session

Besides the main programme, we will offer space for self-organized sessions (or Birds of Feather / BoF). We have set up the OSM wiki page https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2022/self-organized_sessions, where you can sign up for a self-organized online session. For the on-site self-organized session, we will set up a whiteboard where you can reserve your timeslot and room at the conference venue. You can brainstorm for your session topic as early as now!

6. Check the SotM 2022 Programme schedule and plan which sessions you are attending

We have a variety of tracks (general, academic, workshops) and topics in our programme schedule https://2022.stateofthemap.org/programme/ so you can plan as early as now which talks/sessions you are attending as well as list your questions to the speaker(s)!

Did we miss anything? If you have participated in SotM conferences before, let us know how and share your experiences in the comment/reply!

SotM Organising Committee

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Do you want to translate this and other blog posts into your language…? Please email communication@osmfoundation.org with the subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

The State of the Map conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap, organised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development, and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project. The State of the Map Organising Committee is one of our volunteer Working Groups.