Board election results 2016

Last week we held our 2016 Annual General Meeting and foundation members have voted for Kate Chapman and Frederik Ramm to continue serving on the board. Congratulations to both of them!

Election time is always a great opportunity to get various ideas heard, so thanks to Darafei Praliaskouski and Guillaume Rischard for being nominees and hope to see your nominations again next year. You can read all the manifestos online. Special thanks also go to Dermot McNally for handling the polling.

As another mapping year comes to an end, you can read the chairperson’s report for 2016 from Kate Chapman and the treasurer’s report from Frederik Ramm.

Don’t forget that you can influence the direction of the project both by participating and by voting for the board. So, join the Foundation to take part in such elections!

Chairperson’s Report for the OpenStreetMap Foundation 2016 Annual General Meeting

Note: If you are a member of the OSMF you can find more information on the meeting here.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to OpenStreetMap in some way this year. If you mapped, coded, presented or otherwise helped us on our journey to create free map of the entire world this means you. It is an honor to be able to support this community through my role at the OpenStreetMap Foundation and as a community member.

On behalf of the Foundation thank you to everyone who participated in the organization that supports the continued existence of the project. At the center of this is the Working Groups: without our working groups the core technical services wouldn’t run, we would not have the legal infrastructure to effectively run the project, State of the Map wouldn’t happen, mapping disputes wouldn’t have resolutions, official communications wouldn’t exist, and membership would still be run entirely by the board. Much of the Working Group work is thankless, if you are on a Working Group and see me in the next year please remind me to buy you a beer (or other beverage of choice).

Members, if you have been a member for years or this is your first AGM I appreciate you. Please continue to state your needs and if you haven’t please speak up. If you are so inclined help us recruit members for 2017. The membership should serve to keep the board on task and I hope someday it will represent the diverse world that we map.

To the Board Members both new and old, sometimes it is hard to see the forest through the trees. Looking back on this year I think we’ve made some real accomplishments. Sometimes they may not feel like much but they are important the year things we have accomplished:

Increasing board transparency by having open board meetings and thanks to Peter especially, communicating generally with the membership sooner.
We also had our first community member audit of the financial records.
Developing an open-source policy to guide what tools we use to run the OSMF Board
Creating and filling of Admin Assistant Role to help make sure the day to day work is done more efficiently.
Successfully funding and hosting a donation drive to cover the general operating costs of the OSMF over the next year
Updating the Corporate Membership to increase the value of the membership and have it serve as a greater funding base for the OSMF in the future.

Membership Statistics

Here are the regional statistics regarding membership in the OSMF for 2016 with reference to 2015. The regional membership breakdown has changed slightly.

Europe and Central Asia 68.18% [last year 70%]
America South, Central, North and Caribbean 22.73% [last year (USA&Canada) + (Latin America): 23% + 1.5%]
Middle East and North Africa 0.65 % [last year 0.5%]
Africa West, East, Central and Southern 1.08% [last year 0.5%]
Asia-Pacific 7.36% [last year 4.5%]

Looking Forward

We have made some major steps forward this year, but we have a long way to go. Through my day job work in non-profits we often talk about “what is the vision?” and “how can we get there?” For OpenStreetMap our job will never be done, but we would be well on our way to accomplishing our vision by having equal quality data of the entire world. There are things the OSMF must look towards in the coming year and beyond for that to happen:

Supporting mappers is at the core of what we do. Without mappers there is no map
Increasing the funding base of the OSMF. This year we have put some pieces in place to allow that but in the next year we must continue to move towards that. This includes getting organizations to sign-up for new levels of corporate membership and successfully running another donation drive.
Diversifying the membership of the OSMF (and in the future the board, since that will not happen this election)
Providing more clear ways for financial support of Working Groups and Communities

Over the past year I’ve had the privilege to meet OSM contributors on four continents. If I haven’t had the opportunity to meet you please don’t hesitate to reach out. In 2017 I will at the very least be in Australia, the United States, Japan and parts of Europe (not sure which yet). Even if you just want to chat let me know so I can thank you for your contributions and get your feedback. Let’s all continue to make a great map in 2017.

Announcing the 10th State of the Map

Come 2017 it will have been 5 years since the international community gathered in Asia. Today we are delighted to announce that we will be back in Japan for the annual ‘State of the Map’ gathering:

State of the Map will be in Aizuwakamatsu, Japan.

Schedule will be 18th-20th August (with potential for events on 17th August).

Tickets will be on sale in spring 2017.

Tsuruga Castle (c) Sonotoki (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

We had some amazing bids this year and the working group has spent time reviewing these with the local groups – thank you for support. Aizuwakamatsu is a brilliant place for us to gather as a community next year. It is a city in the Fukushima Prefecture some 260 km (160 mi) north of Tokyo. With a long history and many attractions it will also make the perfect place for some sightseeing.

Stay tuned to this blog, and our twitter account @sotm, for more news and how you can participate in State of the Map 2017. It’s always exciting for contributors, consumers, developers, teachers, and everyone in-between to come together and share what’s happening in the OpenStreetMap project. We look forward to seeing you in Japan!

We reached our €70,000 goal. Thank you!

Today, we are grateful, happy and excited to announce that we have reached the goal of €70,000 for our 2016 donation drive! The purpose of this year’s drive – for the OpenStreetMap project to secure its independence and financial security – clearly resonated with you as strongly as it does with us. The continued existence of OpenStreetMap as an independent source of free and open data is priceless, but money is needed to secure it nonetheless. With this €70,000, we will be able to continue maintaining our infrastructure and fund our very modest operational budget.

donate-goal-reached

We would like to thank all 1900+ individual donors, as well as Mapbox, who helped us push this drive over the finish line with a €10,000 matching donation.

If you have not donated yet, you can still do so at donate.openstreetmap.org. Please know that donations in any amount are very welcome throughout the year!

Thank you!

Version 2 of the iD editor

Version 2 of the “iD” editor recently went live. New features include better support for right-to-left languages, authenticated calls to OpenStreetMap servers, and an updated Mapillary viewer.

Viewing street-level Mapillary photos within the iD editor (also super-hi-res imagery appearing by default in Cape Town)

Behind the scenes the editor code has been made more modular, helping future development and customisation. Bryan Housel has been leading the development effort. Read more on his blog post here. Big thanks to him and all the developers involved.

iD is the default editor appearing on the OpenStreetMap website when you click ‘edit’. Never tried? You’ll need to get signed up and logged in first. Follow the ‘walkthrough’ to learn how ‘iD’ works. This is improving all the time, but there’s also a range of desktop or mobile app alternatives. See the list of editors.

Mapbox will match the next €10k of donations!

As I am writing this, our donation drive is just about to hit the €50k mark – we’re only €20k short of our goal now! Thank you everyone who has contributed until now.

And we have super exciting news: Our friends at Mapbox have decided that they will match the next €10k of donations 1:1 – this means that for every donation someone makes, Mapbox will give the same amount again. Which effectively means that we’re only €10k away from reaching our funding goal.

Mapbox have been a steady contributor to our donation drives, a recurring conference sponsor, and they’re also a corporate member of the OSM Foundation – and that’s not even counting non-monetary contributions like their work on the iD editor and other things in OSM.

Thank you Mapbox!

Mapbox blog entry announcing the matching donation.

Introducing the new Corporate Membership Program

The OpenStreetMap Foundation has had a Corporate Membership option for a while, where organizations and companies could become Associate Members of the OpenStreetMap Foundation for GBP 1000 per year. We have seen fantastic interest in this scheme, which is a sign that organizations and companies using OpenStreetMap are willing to give back to the project. In the first years of its existence, we also received a lot of feedback on the Corporate Membership as it exists today. Most of all, organizations wanted more flexibility in the amount they want to pay in exchange for their corporate membership.

After taking in the feedback, consulting with exisiting and potential Corporate Members as well as the Foundation membership, we have designed a new tiered Corporate Membership program that we believe aligns much more closely with the needs of potential Corporate Members. Your organization can now become a Corporate Member for as little as €500 for ‘Supporter’ level, all the way up to €20,000 for ‘Platinum’ level. Each level has different benefits, as laid out below. But the biggest benefit of all is the knowledge that your organization is doing its part to support the growth and sustainability of the OpenStreetMap project!

The Corporate Membership Tiers

Supporter (€500 / year)

Your name on the OSMF web site
Show support for the OSM Foundation
Attend OSMF General Meetings

Bronze (€1,500 / year)

All supporter level benefits, plus:

First access to SotM sponsorship opportunities
Name and logo on OSMF web site.

Silver (€4,000 / year)

All bronze level benefits, plus:

One joint press release annually

Gold (€10,000 / year)

All Silver level benefits, plus:

A seat on the OSMF Advisory Board

Platinum (€20,000 / year)

All Gold level benefits, plus:

Invite a board member for an in-house presentation about OpenStreetMap (you pay for travel / lodging)

This new program will take effect on Jan 1, 2017. However, if you are interested in becoming a corporate member, please do not hesitate to contact us now, and we can get you set up. If you are currently a Corporate Member, we will be in touch about your transition to the new program.

New Local Chapter: Swiss OpenStreetMap Association

We’d like to welcome the Swiss OpenStreetMap Association (sosm.ch) as our latest official OpenStreetMap Foundation Local Chapter.

Paul Norman and Simon Poole (centre) officially finalising the paperwork for the new local chapter at the State Of The Map conference last month in Brussels

With this formal agreement SOSM and the OSM Foundation have declared that we “shall seek to mutually support the activities of the other”. It doesn’t entail any drastic changes, but from a practical standpoint, it does mean SOSM have “official” status which may help them in any dealings with government and political/advocacy groups. It also means they are formally permitted to use the OpenStreetMap trademarks.

Of course we hope to see other countries formalising their foundation status in this way. Switzerland may also serve as an inspirational example in the way this group has been established in support of the local community. As described on their about page “SOSM was created to further the goals of the OpenStreetMap movement, to strengthen the contacts with authorities and industry, to facilitate the activities of OSM community members in Switzerland and to represent the Swiss OSM community in other organisations … providing some structure when needed and remaining as lightweight and as unobstrusive as possible”, which seems like an excellent way to orientate a local OpenStreetMap organisation.

You can also read more about the Swiss OpenStreetMap community on this OpenCaged data interview with Simon Poole about OSM in Switzerland, and you can follow SwissOSM on twitter.

State Of The Map, Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who made it to the international State Of The Map conference in Brussels two weeks ago. With around 400 attendees from 52 different countries, this was a fantastic event bringing our community together.

Huge thanks to the team of organisers, and local volunteers in Belgium who helped make it such a success. We saw some of these people up on stage at the end of the conference:

…but also thanks to those working behind the scenes. A special thank you to Ben Abelshausen and Rob Nickerson who played leading roles in organising the event from on the ground and remote support respectively. There is a list of folks on the SOTM team page, but this will be updated soon because…

The early steps of organising the State Of The Map 2017 are in progress! We’ll bring you an announcement soon about the choice of host country for next year, and of course there will be an opportunity to help with organising and sponsorship. Start thinking about it. Earlier the better!

Video from all the main auditoriums at the Brussels conference can be found at the conference website. We’ll be bringing you the edited per-session versions of these talks soon. More photos from Brussels can be found in this set from Tatiana the official conference photographer, and also on the sotm2016 flickr tag.

We previously congratulated the winners of the OpenStreetMap awards. In addition to that, here are a few links to blogs by attendees with write-ups and ruminations about the conference:

Geofabrik gave a general round-up “As always, State of the Map provided amazing insights into what goes on in the OpenStreetMap universe”
escada wrote a diary entry about his first SoTM “Informative, entertaining and brought by passionate people. Something I have not seen in other (non-OSM-related) conferences”
Mapilllary gave plus their “photo-walk” pictures, “Massive thank you to the organizing team at SotM. They seem to have thought of everything which allowed attendees to focus on getting the most of out of the three days”
Melanie Eckle from Heidelberg University described SoTM, and also the HOT summit and other “maptember” events. “The presentations, workshops and ‘birds of feathers’ sessions in the State of the Map conference covered a great variety of topics”
Mikel wrote up some notes on the Local Chapters congress, one of the activities at the conference (taking place out on the grass in the sunshine!)
Finally SoTM organizing volunteer, Gregory Marler, described the Code Of Conduct of the conference, and some of the issues which came up. This gives a really interesting insight, and shows why it was an important and valuable step to introduce a clear code of conduct, as a way to encourage diversity at our conference. Just one of the many things our organisers and volunteers worked hard on, to keep us all happy at this great event!

If you attended the conference please check your inbox for a “State of the Map: Feedback Survey“ email. The organising team would appreciate your feedback to help make it even better the coming year.

During the conference we launched a new OpenStreetMap fundraising drive. In the past, the conference itself provided a significant annual source of funding for the foundation, but as the project grows we need more reliable funding sources. Your donations help will ensure continuity and continued independence of OpenStreetMap. Please help us reach our fundraising goal by donating and sharing the link: donate.openstreetmap.org, our fundraising site.

Finally if you couldn’t make it to Brussels for the annual international OpenStreetMap conference, remember there’s a whole range of events large and small happening all over the world (see the calendar). Just last weekend there was “State Of The Map Asia“, the second “local” conference for the asian continent, which took place this time in Manilla, Philippines!

We have our winners!

A group photo of all the nominees on the stage of the State of the Map conference

On September 25th we announced the winners of the OpenStreetMap Awards, for which hundreds of mappers voted this month. The results are:

The Core Systems Award went to Roland Olbricht for the Overpass API.
The Innovation Award went to Manuel Roth and Lukas Martinelli for OSM2VectorTiles.
The Influential Writing Award went to the WeeklyOSM Team for their weekly news blog.
The Greatness in Mapping Award went to Martin Ždila for mapping a lot of hiking routes.
The Expanding the Community Award went to Pascal Neis for his community maps.
The Ulf Möller Memorial Award went to Frederik Ramm.

All the nominees are doing important work for improving OpenStreetMap, making it better and more visible. We cannot thank you enough! Also thanks to everyone who voted and to these who spend their hours on the open maps. Please continue the good work, and prepare to nominate each other for the next awards. See you next year!

Membership Statistics

Looking Forward

The Corporate Membership Tiers

OpenStreetMap Blog