This year Groundsure is supporting the Humanitarian Open Street Map Team by using our expertise in digitising map data – using aerial imagery to map out roads and pathways in remote areas to help humanitarian crises. Our support will greatly assist medical teams and emergency crews in accessing and delivering aid globally to those in need during times of crisis.
As you may have seen in the news, Hurricane Matthew recently swept across the Caribbean. Haiti was particularly badly affected; hundreds of people died, the south-west of the island was cut off, phone coverage and electricity were down and people were running out of water. Many of the housing structures in Haiti are made from corrugated iron and plastic, so are easily swept away by natural forces.
An urgent appeal was made by the HOTOSM for mappers to work on the Haitian island, to which Groundsure answered. The number of houses and buildings cobbled together in a packed environment made the task difficult, but the team were more than happy to help the people of Haiti.
The ‘Hot Mapping’ team have been hard at work and have recently finished a project in Ethiopia that was largely focused on farming, medical assistance, allocation of land for grazing and to help the Local Health Centre and Zonal Health Bureau.
We have also worked on a project based in Khudumelapye, Botswana and was to improve mapping in the area to help with HIV and OSM community building. The Open Street Map data is freely accessible to NGOs and charities and is used to help them access remote villages, estimate population numbers and ensure that they are sending help to the right locations.
The team have received numerous messages from project leads thanking them for their hard work, including “Thanks so much to all mappers and validators for the speedy work on this. I have sent the data to our epidemiologist in the field and she will be putting it to good use in the next few weeks. Thanks for your support!”
The Groundsure team meets fortnightly for a two-hour session and the team is growing at a very fast pace. We are thinking of starting up a HOT mapping community outside of work as well that would encourage people within Brighton to help out. More news to follow!
This article was submitted to be published by Groundsure as part of their advertising agreement with Today’s Conveyancer. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Conveyancer.
