The Reality is Virtual:

College Students Assist MapGive & USAID










Tom Gertin U.S. Department of State, Humanitarian Information Unit & Rory Nealon USAID/OTI


July 23, 2016

USAID's Mission: We partner to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies while advancing our security and prosperity.

OTI's Mission: In support of US foreign policy, OTI seizes emerging windows of opportunity in the political landscape to promote stability, peace, and democracy by catalyzing local initiatives through adaptive and agile programming.
USAID/Office of Transition Inititatives
Taking Off!

Phase 1: Familiarization

  • Registration
  • Learning Resources
  • Data Structure
  • First task: Add their home or another feature from their hometown to OSM

Phase 2: OSM Tools

  • iD Editor
  • HOT Tasking Manager
  • JOSM (after they became familiar with editing in iD)
Joint Training

Phase 3: HIU Projects

Identifying Geographic Coordinates of PEPFAR-supported Health Facilities in Cameroon (2,195 points)

Phase 3: OTI Projects/Research

  • Divided students based on geographic areas of interest as it related to OTI's field programs:
    • Afghanistan & Pakistan
    • Africa
    • Europe & Asia
    • Latin America & Caribbean
    • Middle East
  • Researched the OSM community in the assigned countries and regions
  • Idenfied gaps in OSM data
  • Developed work plan with input from OTI's different country teams

Tools we used to Make this Happen

  • slack (MapGive and OTI had their own channels)
  • Hangouts for training
Metrics & Measuring Production

How much did our students map?

#vsfsmapping: 460 Changesets for 19,246 changes
#vsfs-mapgive: 706 Changesets for 31,742 changes
total: 1,166 Changesets for 50,988 changes



Looking Forward


  • Welcome Peace Corps!
  • Shared # plus individual project # for changeset comments
  • Joint Trainings between the three offices, recorded for those who can't make it
  • Contributing to existing OSM resources (the wiki, Learn OSM, etc...)
  • MapGive vs OTI vs Peace Corps Mapoff???

Sign Up! Deadline is July 26th