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.

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:

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.

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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!

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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:

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…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:

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!

State of the map Asia 2016 group photo

We have our winners!

A group photo of all the nominees on the stage of the State of the Map conferenceOn 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!

Donate today to support OpenStreetMap!

At State of the Map, which is about to kick off in Brussels, Belgium, we will be officially launching this year’s OpenStreetMap donation drive! This time around, we are raising money with a most important goal: our continued independence as a project.

OpenStreetMap is the largest open geographic database in the world, the data infrastructure for multitudes of mapping projects around the globe. OpenStreetMap data is, and will always be, free to use. Your donation to the OpenStreetMap Foundation will cover our core operational expenses in supporting the OpenStreetMap project: hardware costs, legal fees, administrative assistant and other expenses of our working groups and administration.

We currently run extremely lean for an operation for a project the size and importance of OpenStreetMap. The OpenStreetMap Foundation relies on revenue from individual and corporate membership dues, profits generated by the annual State of the Map conferences, and past donation drives (thank you so much for the support last year — GBP 60,000 for updating our server infrastructure). We must keep our income sources diversified, as these vary from year to year, but our modest needs stay the same. For this, we need your support.

Thank you for considering donating to OpenStreetMap! We are truly grateful for donations of any amount. Whether you can give €100 or €5, please know that your donation will go directly towards keeping OpenStreetMap strong, stable and independent. Thank you!

State of the Map Workshops and Lightning Talks

A Fork in the Road

A Fork in the Road

A successful conference is the perpetual fork in the road. Which path (otherwise known as “track”) will you walk down? Because honestly — the entire program of State of the Map is amazing (otherwise known as “mouth-watering”).

In parallel to our regularly scheduled programming of such amazing talks (including yours truly!) on Friday we have the excitement of five minute lightning talks AND on Sunday we invite you to get your hands dirty in our workshop sessions.

Now most seriously, it is important to wash your hands before attending any State of the Map event so we don’t advise attending workshops unkempt. But if you are interested in trying on some of the newest development and contribution to OpenStreetMap we very much encourage you to come.

Come find the Lightning Talks on Friday 4-5pm in Auditorium A

And get your silverware ready for a Workshops 15 course meal (that means there are 15 workshops!) starting at 10am and going until 5pm on Sunday. There will be Workshops in rooms QA and QC as well as Room 1 and Room 2, in Building D. 

And if we don’t see you at those we will see you at the talks, otherwise know as the spoons and knives of the conference. Because the entire State of the Map program is designed to satisfy your your OpenStreetMap appetite. Come hungry!

Vote for the Best at the OpenStreetMap Awards

This year, for the first time in history of our project, we are preparing for the first OpenStreetMap Awards, which will be presented this September at the State of the Map 2016 conference in Brussels.

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Again, this is a community award: nominees and winners are chosen by you, the community. During the preliminary stage, you have submitted more than a hundred nominees for six categories, including the Ulf Möller Memorial Award. From those, a group of active members of the OSM Foundation have prepared a short list: five candidates for each category. It definitely was not simple: a lot has happened during the past year, and we had to omit some good nominees to fit in these five slots. With the remaining list we’re left thinking “can we just award all of them?”, but there can be only one winner (for each category). So the rest is up to you!

Please vote for your nominees on the awards website. For each of the six categories, choose one nominee. Whoever gains the most votes by the end of the voting, on September 22nd, will receive the award. The winners will be announced on Sunday, September 25th, at the State of the Map conference.

Gather your Birds of a Feather at State of the Map

When we get together for State of the Map, there is so much to do… in-person.

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday of State of the Map, we will have several spaces for Birds of a Feather (BoFs). BOFs are informal meetings, planned ahead or thought up spontaneously. These can be gathering points for discussions, mapping, code and documentation sprints, and hacking sessions. They can even be organized rest and napping sessions! These meeting are whatever you want and whatever you need to make a successful State of the Map.

The Birds of Feather sessions will take place in the Foyer and “Building D” classrooms, adjacent to the main conference hall. We will have a sign up board prominently in the main area to schedule sessions and add ideas.

And all day Sunday, we have Free and Open Space in Nelson Mandela Hall! Collaborate together on coding, mapping, or documentation sprints. Plan the next big thing. Unlike a Birds of a Feather session this is a non-bookable room; let’s make it a hive of activity open to all.

Start sharing your informal session ideas for State of the Map. And keep up with the latest State of the Map on the @sotm twitter account. See you there!

State of the Map: Asia and Latin America

We’ve had plenty of State of the Map conferences in 2016. Japan, United States, France, and Italy all organized their national conferences. Czech Republic and Slovakia united to run their event together. In September it’s the time for the global State of the Map in Brussels, Belgium. And to end this great year of events, we are going to have two continental State of the Map conferences: in Asia and Latin America.

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Both conferences had their first editions in 2015 and will repeat their success this year. Both events are also offering free tickets for all attendees.

The State of the Map Asia will take place in Manila, Philippines, from October 1st to 2nd. The call for presentations has already finished, and the program will be published soon.

São Paulo, Brazil, will host the State of the Map Latam from November 25th to 27th. The call for talks, workshops and working groups is still open: submit yours before September 25th! The event accepts activities in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Book your place and go meet the mappers of Latin America and Asia.