[ubuntu-za] Volunteer needed for OpenStreetMap project

[Jonathan Hitchcock]

I am passing this message on from Mikel Maron (http://brainoff.com/).   
If you are interested, please contact either Mikel at mikel_maron at yahoo.com 
  or Joy at joy at ikamvayouth.org.



South African lovers of freedom and openness--

Please excuse this slightly tangental post. We're looking for a  
technically oriented volunteer to work with young people in  
Khayelitsha, Cape Town, training them in using GPS and OpenStreetMap.  
Read on if you're interested.

OpenStreetMap [http://www.openstreetmap.org/] is a project to create a  
free and open map of the entire world, through volunteers collecting  
and contributing GPS tracks to an open database. The one-liner is  
"like Wikipedia for Maps". We've been growing exponentially globally,  
and making great progress in South Africa. Cape Town especially, where  
most of the metro area is complete, and the municipality itself has  
agreed to release its data set into the commons. Bravo!

Last month at InfoActivism [http://infoactivism.org -- a week long  
training workshop for digital activists] I met Joy Olivier with  
ikamvayouth.org, an NGO working for youth empowerment in South Africa.  
After hearing about OSM, Joy became interested in introducing OSM to  
young people living in informal areas, like Khayelitsha, and mapping  
these off-the-map places for OSM.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-34.0414&lon=18.6541&zoom=13&layers=B000FTF

The OSM Foundation has given two GPS to Joy on a long term loan, for  
use in this project. The week at InfoActivism was short, so I wasn't  
able to show everything to Joy in depth. If anyone in Cape Town or  
further afield has interest to help, by training with Joy and her  
staff, or working directly with youth, please contact Joy and/or myself.

Joy herself says..

"IkamvaYouth is particularly interested in mapping the youth-relevant  
aspects of Khayelitsha (other youth orgs, schools, parks, sports  
fields and clubs, community centres, clinics, libraries, internet  
cafes etc.) We have digital cameras and it would be great to have the  
learners create geotagged photos and creating Points of Interest in  
OpenStreetMap.

Unfortunately, we don't have anyone in-house with GPS or mapping know- 
how, and so we're looking for someone to come spend some time with our  
volunteers and learners and manage and coordinate this project, or  
train an ikamvanite to do so.

We're pretty flexible with time, and it will depend on whether or not  
someone from OpenStreetMap South Africa can help run with this project  
or if we will do it ourselves. We're an
after-school programme that operates in the afternoons and on  
Saturdays. We also run a holiday programme throughout the June/July  
holidays, which may also be a good time to do the project.

If there's anyone out there to whom this sounds interesting, who'd  
like to work with some amazing (bright and super enthusiastic)  
learners in Khayelitsha (aged 16 - 22), please contact me!"

Best
Mikel