2018.03.18

Chinese proverb says “The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”. Well, I did not know it was my first step towards a long journey when I walked into the “Map your community” workshop arranged by Save the Children International in Bangladesh. The workshop was arranged for the “Kolorob” project, aiming to completely map two slum areas where the Kolorob app will be launched. The purpose of the app was to provide slum dwellers with necessary information so they can make informed decision. The chosen map was OpenStreetMap. In the two days workshop, I was first introduced to mapping and I got hooked.

I had no idea how maps were made, no idea about GPS, no idea about anything related to mapping. As a completely new area, it was able to grab my attention pretty tight and I started learning more about it. I was hired by “Save the Children” as a volunteer mapper in Kolorob project and I started doing field mapping using different tools. I also assisted in OSM traning and lead field mapping team for the “Data4Action” project by American Red Cross in association with Bangladesh Red Crescent and Red Cross Society.

My interest stretched out to GIS and I started learning the basics by myself. Along with my learning, I continued mapping and became an active member of the OpenStreetMap Bangladesh (OSMBD) team, which is the OSM community in Bangladesh who were actively working with OSM as it’s contributor, advocate and as a learning sharing platform.

I joined Save the Children as a Project Officer in OpenStreetMapping and as a graphic designer in the “Kolorob” project, the same project that started my OSM journey. Here I lead my team to map, collect data, take GPS track to map road network etc. Through work in professional area, my knowledge and expertise level grew a lot. I became more interested in GIS and started learning QGIS and ArcGIS. I took courses in advanced ArcGIS which helped clarifying a lot of concepts and made me aware of the numerous possibilities that GIS give access to. I also started volunteering for Tanzania Development Trust as a mapper and also as a member of the mapping group. These interactions helped me learn more and more and gave me the opportunity to expand my knowledge and understanding of OpenStreetMap.

We (me and some other members of OSM community) did not want to limit ourselves to mapping only. We wanted to use mapping and merge our other ideas together to form a group that will work for humanitarian and development purposes which ultimately will contribute to the wellbeing of our environment, society, country and our planet. So we formed Bangladesh Open Innovation Lab (BOIL) and Bangladesh Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Operational Team (BHOOT which means Ghost in Bengali, indicating the mappers behind the map whose actions are so visible, but they themselves are not) to expand our scope of work.

Data is nothing if it is not used by people. You may have thousands of data on how to improve wellbeing of your society, but if that data is not open and not used, that data amounts to nothing. That is where OSM is making the difference. The data is open here, open for anyone to use, analyze and share. This presents myriads of opportunities to create different platforms to utilize this data in sectors such as humanitarian, disaster risk reduction, environment and conservation, road and transport network etc. and even to day to day life for navigation or finding your nearest shop.

My journey continues. My mapping continues and with each step I am learning more, and realizing more of the potential that is around us. All we need to do is take the first step and the path will stretch out before us.