Community Maps of Kozhikode
Can you imagine that there were forteen students from our Kozhikode who were involved in the Disaster Relief and Recovery work in the unfortunate Earth Quake that affected Nepal this summer of 2015? Our students were part of a growing number of Humanitarian Open Street Map team who were remotely mapping disaster affected regions of Nepal. Started by a handful of volunteers and later joined by people from all around the world, compared satellite imageries and traced buildings, farmland, roads, paths, streets, hospitals and even open space for relief helicopters to land. This 'desktop' mapping in partnership with
MapBox,
GroundTruth Initiative and
The Blue Yonder were part of a global volunteer base of 4000+ people who worked day and night to ensure that relief reached on time. The data shared was then verified by team of volunteers including the experts at
Kathmandu Living Labs resulting in generating more than 2000
Quake Reports in the first three weeks from the ground which highlighted the plight of people and the relief coordination.
Now imagine if we all go around our district and collect information about our roads, streets, pathways, stories, legends, folklore, cultural and natural heritage to name a few? Imagine us documenting pharmacies, open wells, palliative clinics, schools, bird sanctuaries, play grounds, water falls etc on a map that belongs to the community? Imagine that you develop your own map, edit and use it where the content belongs to our people and not some corporate? This is different from 'remote mapping' similar to what some of our volunteers did for Nepal. This requires local knowledge. Names of roads, buildings, relevance to local culture etc. Open Street Map facilitates one such open data platform where the content generated stays open with no ownership to anyone. The data is free to use and is representative of us based on our priorities.
How does it work:
We are currently training volunteers to document destination stories on wikipedia, blogs, youtube video, open street maps etc so that mapping becomes a culture of 'Compassionate Kozhikode'. If you are interested in joining us as a volunteer please write to us with a subject "Kozhipedia". Our dream is to make a people's map of Kozhikode. Over a period of time, we hope to run the Compassion Kozhikode website based on platforms like
USHAHIDI and
OSM
Interesting links to read:
Missing Maps:
Mapping the unmapped>/a>:
Mapping Power to People