Author Archives: Dorothea

About Dorothea

Posting mostly in a Communication Working Group capacity (and often with text written collaboratively among CWG and others).

2024 OSMF Board Election – Online voting is open until 19 October at 16:00 UTC, when the Annual General Meeting will commence

OpenStreetMap Foundation logo
Official OSM logo by Ken Vermette, CC-BY-SA 3.0 & trademarks apply.

This weekend take the opportunity to read the board candidates’ answers and manifestos and vote in the 2024 OSM Foundation Board election!

The OpaVote voting emails will be sent to eligible OSM Foundation members this Saturday 12 October 2024, after 16:00 UTC and will link directly to the voting page – listing each candidate in random order and allowing you to rank the candidates in order of preference.


Eligibility to vote

You are eligible to vote in the election if

  • you have been a member for the full 90 days prior to the date of the Annual General Meeting (which will take place on 19 October 2024), and
  • your membership is not in arrears 7 days before the date of the Annual General Meeting, and
  • you are a natural person.


OpaVote email

The email from the OpaVote online voting platform will be sent to the email address associated with your OSM Foundation membership, and

  • the subject of the email will be: [OpenStreetMap Foundation] Vote for 2024 Board Elections [some_random_letters],
  • the sender will be: noreply@opavote.com

If you believe you should have received a voting email but can’t find it by Sunday, 13 October, please check your spam folder. If it’s still missing, send a message to the email address mentioned here.


Voting information and answers to frequent questions

You can find more information about voting and answers to frequently asked questions on this page.

Please make sure to read the warning on the page before voting.


Deadline for voting: Saturday 19 October at 16:00 UTC

The polls will remain accessible for one week, closing on Saturday 19 October 2024 at 16:00 UTC, when the Annual General Meeting will commence. We kindly ask you to vote in advance.


Do you want to translate this and other blog posts in another language..? Send an email to communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed 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, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international State of the Map conference. Our volunteer Working Groups and small core staff work to support the OpenStreetMap project. Join the OpenStreetMap Foundation for just £15 a year or for free if you are an active OpenStreetMap contributor.

Get notified about new blog posts: Subscribe to the English RSS feed (feeds also available for other languages)

OSMF board election 2024 – Submission of self-nominations is open until 13 August 2024, 23:59:59 UTC

OpenStreetMap Foundation logo
Official OSM logo by Ken Vermette, CC-BY-SA 3.0 & trademarks apply.

Submission of self-nominations for the 2024 OSM Foundation board election is open. At least four of the seven board seats are available. Board members are volunteers and typically serve for two years until their seat is up for re-election.

You can put yourself forward as a board candidate by adding your information to the OSM wiki.

Submission of questions to candidates

Community members can submit questions to the candidates here, until 24 August 2024 at 23:59:59 UTC. The official set of questions, which candidates will be asked to answer, will be based on the questions from the community and previous years. The facilitator for the questioning process this year, selected by the board, is Brian Sperlongano.

Resources regarding the 2024 board election and the 18th Annual General Meeting

For more information regarding the 2024 board election and the 18th Annual General Meeting, please see the following links:

Key dates

  • List on the OSM wiki.
  • Monthly view – Please check the description of each event for exact dates and times — the OSM wiki is the authoritative source.

How you can help

Besides asking questions and voting, a few of the current and past board members have mentioned that the thought of being a candidate did not cross their mind until it was suggested to them. So, you might want to think if you’d like to run for the board or to propose being a candidate to others.


Do you want to translate this and other blog posts in another language..? Send an email to communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed 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, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international State of the Map conference. Our volunteer Working Groups and small core staff work to support the OpenStreetMap project. Join the OpenStreetMap Foundation for just £15 a year or for free if you are an active OpenStreetMap contributor

Get notified about new blog posts: Subscribe to the English RSS feed (feeds also available for different languages)

OSM Foundation board election 2024 – How to become a board candidate

OpenStreetMap Foundation logo
Official OSM logo by Ken Vermette, CC-BY-SA 3.0 , trademarks apply.


OpenStreetMap Foundation members will vote to elect a new board in October. There will be four seats available: of Arnalie Vicario, Craig Allan, Mateusz Konieczny and Sarah Hoffmann, whose board terms are ending. The terms of Dani Waltersdorfer, Guillaume Rischard and Roland Olbricht will continue. There are seven seats on the foundation board and board members are volunteers.

Self-nominations of board candidates will open on 28 July 2024 and you will be able to nominate yourself on this OpenStreetMap wiki page: https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/Foundation/AGM2024/Election_to_Board#List_of_board_candidates

You can create an account on the OSM wiki here and you will be able to add your name to the table that will be added on that date by editing the page here (please wait until 28 July 2024 to do so). Self-nominations will close on the 13th of August at 23:59 UTC.

Election timeline

The timeline of the election is here: https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/Foundation/AGM2024/Election_to_Board#Key_dates

What the board is/is not, rules and responsibilities and why run

Please read the links on the OSM wiki.

A lot of the foundation’s work is done by the volunteers of our Working Groups, and if you want to help the foundation, you can also look at joining those.

Who can become a board candidate

Any natural person may be elected to become a board member, provided that:

  • they have been a normal OSM Foundation member [1] or an associate member [2] during the full 180 days before the General Meeting, which will take place on 19 October 2024, and
  • have been a normal member for the full 28 days prior to the General Meeting, and
  • are willing to act as a board member, and
  • are permitted by law to do so.

[1] Normal members provide their full residential address and can vote on all issues. Their residential address may be disclosed to other members.
[2] Associate members provide just their country of residence - which may also be disclosed to other members - and can vote - but not on all issues. Additionally, they cannot be board candidates.

If you want to find out the type of your OpenStreetMap Foundation membership (normal or associate), please check the most recent approval/renewal membership email or email the volunteers of the Membership Working Group at membership@osmfoundation.org from the email account associated with your OSM Foundation membership. Please see the OSM wiki regarding changing your membership type.

Resources about the 2024 board election and Annual General Meeting

The main two pages that have the information about the 2024 board election and Annual General Meeting are:

Resolutions proposed by OSM Foundation members

OSM Foundation members can submit resolutions and ask the membership to vote on them. The resolutions need to be supported by at least 5% of members eligible to vote, in order to be added to the ballots. Please read: Companies Act 2006: Members’ power to require circulation of written resolution. The deadline for providing the supported resolutions will be the 24th of August.

How you can help

A few of the current and past board members have mentioned that the thought of being a candidate did not cross their mind until it was suggested to them. So, you might want to think if you’d like to run for the board or to suggest being a candidate to others.


Do you want to translate this and other blog posts in another language..? Send an email to communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed 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, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international State of the Map conference. Our volunteer Working Groups and small core staff work to support the OpenStreetMap project. Join the OpenStreetMap Foundation for just £15 a year or for free if you are an active OpenStreetMap contributor

Get notified about new blog posts: Subscribe to the RSS feed

Invitation to State of the Map Europe 2024

The OpenStreetMap Poland Association is pleased to invite all members of the OSM community to the State of the Map Europe 2024 conference, to be held in Łódź, Poland, from 18–21 July 2024. In addition to many interesting presentations and talks, it will be an opportunity to meet, discuss and exchange experiences.

Conference tickets

Conference tickets can be purchased at: https://tobilet.pl/state-of-the-map-europe-2024.html

Traveling and accommodation

If you would like some advice on how to get to the conference, and suggestions for accommodation, we have compiled some information at: https://stateofthemap.eu/accommodation.html

If you have questions about traveling to Poland or you would like to ask something else related to the conference, you can write at: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/invitation-to-the-state-of-the-map-europe-2024/114661

Volunteering

As you know, ’State of the Map Europe’ is a non-profit event, and for organizational purposes we need people who can help us on a volunteer basis.

During the event, we will need volunteers who will be ready to support us in Łódź — mainly on the premises of the Łódź University of Technology (unless other requirements are mentioned). To check what we need and what we offer in return, please see this page: https://stateofthemap.eu/volunteering.html For volunteers from outside Łódź, a limited accommodation will be available.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the conference!

OSM Poland board



OpenStreetMap Poland is a Local Chapter of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, which supports the OpenStreetMap project.

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, to calculate routes etc.  OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very  quickly, or easily, updated.

OSM Foundation board elections 2023

The OpenStreetMap logo, with text "OpenStreetMap Foundation" on the right

The members of the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) will vote to elect a new board in December. Voting will start on 2 December 2023 at 16:00 UTC and the results will be announced on 9 December 2023, during the 2023 Annual General Meeting.

Available seats in this election

There will be at least three board seats available in this election: of Guillaume Rischard, Mikel Maron and Roland Olbricht, whose board terms are ending. Meanwhile, the terms of Arnalie Vicario, Craig Allan, Mateusz Konieczny and Sarah Hoffmann will continue. There are seven seats on the foundation board.

Please note that Guillaume Rischard and Roland Olbricht have decided to rerun. Mikel Maron cannot rerun, according to the Foundation’s Articles of Association. All board members are volunteers.

Who has the right to vote

All normal members [1] and associate members [2] (including members who joined via the active contributor membership program) have the right to vote provided that:

  • they are a member or associate member throughout the period of 90 days prior to the date on which the meeting is held; and
  • their membership account is not in arrears 7 days prior to the date on which the general meeting is held and
  • they are a natural person (human).
[1] Normal members provide their full residential address and can vote on all General Meeting resolutions. Their residential address may be disclosed to other members.
[2] Associate members provide just their country of residence - which may also be disclosed to other members - and can vote - but not on all General Meeting resolutions. Additionally, they cannot be board candidates.

Please note that “90 days” means that the start date of your current membership has to be before the beginning of Sunday 10 September 2023 in UTC, if the Annual General Meeting takes place on 9 December 2023, as scheduled.

If you want to vote and you have an OSM Foundation membership which ends before the 2023 General Meeting, please make sure to renew it in advance. To find the end date of your membership, or the type, you can check the email you received during your previous membership renewal. If you can’t find the email, or have not received the automatic reminder about membership renewal, you could also ask the volunteers of the Membership Working Group.

Board rules, responsibilities and why run

Please read the links on the OSM wiki to find out about the board rules, responsibilities and why run.

A lot of the foundation’s work is done by the volunteers of our working groups, and if you want to help the Foundation, you can also look at joining those.

A few of the current and past board members have mentioned that the thought of being a board candidate did not cross their mind until it was suggested to them. So, you might want to think if you’d like to run for the board or to suggest being a candidate to others.

Eligibility criteria for board candidates

Any person may be elected to become a board member, provided that:

  • They are normal OSMF members 28 days before the General Meeting, and
  • they have been a normal member or associate member during the full 180 days [3] before the General Meeting, and
  • are willing to act as a board member, and
  • are permitted by law to do so.
[3] 180 days: OSMF membership start date before 12 June 2023, if the Annual General Meeting takes place on 9 December 2023, as scheduled. 

If you are an Associate member and you satisfy the rest of the criteria, it is possible to change your membership type to Normal. Please contact the volunteers of the Membership Working Group and provide your residential address.

Resolutions proposed by OSM Foundation members

OSM Foundation members can submit resolutions and ask the membership to vote on them. The resolutions need to be supported by at least 5% of members eligible to vote [4], in order to be added to the ballots. Please read: Companies Act 2006: Members’ power to require circulation of written resolution. The deadline for providing the supported resolutions will probably be 25 October 2023. Please check the key dates on the OSM wiki in the coming weeks (link below).

[4] If the vote would take place today, you would need the support of at least 76 OSMF members eligible to vote. Please note that this number will change.

Resources about the 2023 board election and Annual General Meeting

The main two pages that will be enriched in the coming weeks with information about the 2023 board election and the Annual General Meeting are:

If you are an OSM Foundation member, you can also keep an eye on osmf-talk (the OSMF members’ mailing list) for updates. As an OSMF member, you can register to osmf-talk here (please use the email address associated with your OSMF membership) and the archive of the mailing list is here.

If you would like to read how the election process usually works, you can check the pages for the previous election on the OSM wiki and the OSMF website.

About the OpenStreetMap Foundation

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed 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, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international State of the Map conference. Our volunteer Working Groups and small core staff work to support the OpenStreetMap project. Join the OpenStreetMap Foundation for just £15 a year or for free if you are an active OpenStreetMap contributor.

Upcoming downtime on 2023-01-22

Dear OpenStreetMappers,

On Sunday January 22nd 2023 between 10:00 and 15:00 UTC/GMT the API database servers will be unavailable due to maintenance. You can see this in your local time zone at Event Time Announcer – OpenStreetMap API Maintenance 1

We are planning to upgrade the software which runs the main OpenStreetMap database. Unfortunately, we cannot do this without some downtime.

The following services WILL be affected:

  • www.openstreetmap.org web site WILL NOT allow edits,
  • API will NOT allow map editing (using iD, JOSM, etc), and
  • replication updates will be paused (minutely updates and changeset replication).

We expect that the database upgrade will not take the full duration, and we will try as far as possible to keep the API available in read-only mode, but the API may be briefly unavailable.

At times you may be unable to login to services which requires openstreetmap.org authentication (e.g. community, forum, and help).

Other OpenStreetMap provided services should not be affected except for login – all of the following are expected to function normally:

Services not run by the OpenStreetMap Foundation will not be impacted, except there will be no updates from OSM.

Technical details are at Plan API database PostgreSQL upgrade · Issue #548 · openstreetmap/operations · GitHub

Paul Norman


What is OpenStreetMap?

OpenStreetMap was founded in 2004 and is a 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, to calculate routes etc. OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very quickly, or easily, updated.

What is the OpenStreetMap Foundation?

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed 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, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international State of the Map conference. The OpenStreetMap Foundation supports the OpenStreetMap project through the work of our volunteer Working Groups. Please consider becoming a member of the Foundation – you can become a member for free, if you are an active OpenStreetMap contributor.

OSMF and OpenCage – Joint press release

Note: OpenCage is a silver level corporate member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, entitling them to this joint press release. If your organisation would like to support the OSMF more, please consider joining the OSMF as a corporate member, or read about other ways to give back.

OpenStreetMap Foundation corporate member OpenCage is pleased to announce a new collaboration with popular geospatial podcast MapScaping to help encourage the growth of small OpenStreetMap-based projects.

OpenCage has purchased four episodes worth of MapScaping advertising slots, and will donate these slots to small OpenStreetMap projects. Each selected project will receive a 30 second ad read, a presence on the MapScaping website, and promotion via social media. The definition of “OpenStreetMap projects” is intentionally left vague to encourage a wide spectrum of applications. Examples of the types of projects OpenCage and MapScaping could imagine supporting with the initiative include: open source tools seeking developers, OSMF volunteers recruiting volunteers, start-ups looking to make their service more widely known, or local OSM communities advertising new initiatives.

Full details of the initiative and application process are laid out in a post on the OpenCage blog. Applications are open until the 15th of October. Preference will be given to projects that, due to their newness or non-commercial nature, don’t have the resources to advertise themselves.

“Our service has depended on OpenStreetMap since the day we first started eight years ago. While we’ve always done our best to give back to the OSM community – for example by sponsoring events, and becoming corporate members of the foundation – we specifically wanted to find a way to help smaller, up and coming projects. Working with MapScaping gives us a great tool to help these projects accelerate,” said Ed Freyfogle, OpenCage co-founder.

Daniel O’Donohue, founder and host of MapScaping said, “We’re delighted to provide a platform to help the OpenStreetMap community grow by sharing these projects with our global audience. OpenStreetMap has been a key ingredient in the explosion of geospatial innovation over the last decade, and I’m looking forward to working with creative projects that are at the leading edge of that innovation.”

About OpenCage

OpenCage operates a highly-available, enterprise level geocoding API based on OpenStreetMap and other open datasources. In addition to being corporate members of the OSMF, OpenCage are proud members of the UK and German local chapters, co-sponsor and contribute to the open source development of Nominatim (the primary OpenStreetMap geocoding software), and regularly sponsor OpenStreetMap events. 

About MapScaping

The MapScaping Podcast is a weekly podcast for the geospatial community. Started in 2019, MapScaping has grown rapidly to become a leading independent media voice in the global geospatial discussion. The show profiles innovative geo projects and technologies, and provides a forum to discuss issues facing the geospatial community. 

What is OpenStreetMap?

OpenStreetMap was founded in 2004 and is a 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, to calculate routes etc. OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very quickly, or easily, updated.

What is the OpenStreetMap Foundation?

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed 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, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international State of the Map conference. The OSMF supports the OpenStreetMap project through the work of our volunteer Working Groups. Please consider becoming a member of the Foundation – you can become a member for free, if you are an active OpenStreetMap contributor.

State of the Map 2022 – Thanks, what you can still do, statistics and upcoming regional SotMs

The 15th State of the Map conference took place in Firenze, Italy and online from 19th-21st August. This would not have been possible without the work of the organising team and other volunteers, speakers, attendees in person and online, people who submitted posters or talks, translators, the contributors to the project and the sponsors.

Self-submitted photos of some State of the Map 2022 attendees. Compilation by volunteers of the State of the Map working group.
State of the Map 2022 attendees in Florence, Italy. Photo by Carlo Prevosti, CC BY-SA 4.0

You can read about some of the attendees’ experiences (in various languages) or post your own if you attended either in Florence or online. Feel free to add the link of your entry to the above OSM wiki page (requires a different log-in than your log-in to www.osm.org).

Some videos are already available on media.ccc.de and on the State of the Map YouTube channel (playlist here). The recordings are currently being processed by volunteers. You might also be interested in the Geomob podcast, the (at the time) live blog by Ilya and Gregory and in Gregory’s videos.

If you saw photographs of the catering hall, you might have noticed the posters on the walls. But what were they about..? You can check the interesting variety of posters here – which is fortunate even for Florence attendees, as in some cases the posters were not easy to reach due to the placement of the tables 🙂

As in the previous years, this year we had a lot of academics visiting the conference. If you are interested in the academic track, the proceedings are published on Zenodo.

Ticket statistics

If you like statistics, you can find some below 🙂 Please note that these are related to the tickets purchased/obtained and do not correlate 100% with the stats of attendees (as a few people had tickets but did not manage to attend the conference). Additionally, providing information such as country or organisation/company (if applicable) was optional.

  • 195 people with online (Venueless) tickets only.
  • 406 Florence ticket holders (with online ticket as well).

The online (Venueless) ticket was needed only if you wanted to interact with other online attendees. Otherwise, you could see the talks streamed for free – and the recordings are currently being added online (more information below).

Of the 406 Florence tickets obtained, there were

  • 218 for people associated with organisations/companies (profit, non-profit, local OSM organisations – as self-declared during registration), including
    * 74 for people from State of the Map 2022 sponsoring organisations.
    * >= 34 for people associated with HOT (most self-declared during registration).
  • >= 58 for people from Universities/research institutes (most self-declared during registration).
  • 30 for State of the Map 2022 volunteers.
  • 20 for OSM Foundation travel grantees.

Regional and country statistics of Florence ticket holders

136 people (33% of the Florence ticket holders) provided a country during online registration.

Regional statistics for the 33% of Florence ticket holders:

  • 90 Europe
  • 19 America
  • 14 Asia
  • 11 Africa
  • 2 Oceania

The following countries had five or more ticket holders:

  • 26 Germany
  • 16 United States
  • 15 Italy
  • 11 Great Britain
  • 9 France
  • 7 Netherlands
  • 5 India
  • 5 Romania

People from the following countries also had tickets and mentioned their country during online registration: Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czechia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Malawi, Moldova, Nepal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Statistics of online-only ticket holders

Most online-only ticket holders did not provide much information during online registration. For example, none of the 195 online-only ticket holders provided their country.

Organisation
95 of the 195 online-only ticket holders provided an organisation during registration. Of these, 11 were associated with a university or research institute and 7 were from State of the Map 2022 sponsoring companies.

T-shirt preferences

Of the 406 Florence ticket holders,

  • 122 (30%) chose a lady t-shirt.
  • 284 (70%) chose a male t-shirt.

Visa support

We helped 64 people with supporting documents for their Visa applications. This number was increased compared to State of the Map 2019, where we received similar requests from just 19 persons. The increase was partly due to increased requests by YouthMappers and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT).

  • YouthMappers: ~20 Visa-related requests.
  • HOT: ~14 Visa-related requests.
  • OSMF travel grantees: ~ 11 Visa-related requests.

Please note that not all Visa applicants managed to get a Visa, and that some of the OSMF travel grantees were also connected to YouthMappers or HOT. There might be a blog post or diary entry in the near future dedicated just to the SotM 2022 travel grants provided by the OSM Foundation.

Upcoming regional State of the Map conferences

Was State of the Map 2022 too far for you to travel? One of the upcoming regional State of the Map conferences might be closer and at least one of them is also online. These regional conferences are organised by local communities and not by the OSM Foundation. The current information is:

  • State of the Map Nigeria 2022, 1-3 December 2022, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
  • State of the Map Japan 2022, 3 December 2022, Kakogawa Chamber of Commerce and Industry Centre, Japan.
  • State of the Map Asia 2022, 21-25 November 2022, Legazpi City, Philippines.
  • State of the Map Tanzania 2023, 20-22 January 2023, Dar es Salaam and online.
  • State of the Map Africa 2023, 6-8 December 2023, Yaounde, Cameroon.

…or you might be interested to organise a regional State of the Map event with your local OSM community. In this case please remember to submit the State of the Map quick licence form 🙂

Next international State of the Map

The decision about the host country of the next international State of the Map is pending. Watch this space.


Get notified about new blogposts: Subscribe to the RSS feed!

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]

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.

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.

Happy 18th Anniversary, OpenStreetMap :)

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 🙂


Get notified about new blogposts: Subscribe to the RSS feed!

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.

State of the Map 2023 – Call for Venues

The State of the Map working group is delighted to announce that the call for venues for 2023 is now open!

SotM Logo

State of the Map 2022 in Florence and online is approaching. We – the State of the Map (SotM) working group – are co-working with an awesome local team based in Italy. They found the venue. Checked the technical conditions for video and more. They ordered catering. The social event is planned. Next steps will be the managing of all volunteers in all roles and shifts. Not too easy 🙂

So we take some time and start thinking about State of the Map 2023

We are looking for a local team that wants to bring OpenStreetMap to their home town. Do you have any suitable locations in your city? Can it host 300 or 500 people? And .. this cannot be too expensive as SotM wants to stay affordable for the community. How is the catering managed? How easy can attendees and participants travel your city?

We can help you investigate and develop a suitable bid. Please contact us.

Or you can directly start your bid here:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2023/Call_for_venues

– Christine, SotM Working Group

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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.

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.