Map Kibera
Mikel Maron, OSM Foundation
SIPA/Columbia University
2009 Sep 28
photo: http://gallery.me.com/dbullington#100816&view=null&bgcolor=black&sel=12

Kibera 1 million, area size of Central park
is a blank spot on the map

Slum Clearance
How can change be discussed without knowing the present?
photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kibera,_Nairobi_May_2007.jpg

The Challenge of Slums
1 Billion people in slums today
Current Best Practice: Participatory Slum Upgrading
Very very few maps

High Speed Internet &
Nairobi Tech Community
photo: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8259533.stm

November
Partner with community groups
Train movitated young Kiberans
to map Kibera themselves.
Volunteers from Nairobi tech
community
Data users invited to
participate

OpenStreetMap?
Global Collaborative Mapping
“kinda like Wikipedia for Maps”

GPS Surveying, Mapping Parties,
Imagery Digitizing, Open Database

Maps and Data are
Expensive, Wrong, Not Everywhere

OSM in
Print, Offline, Mobile

OSM in
Govt & Corps

OSM in
Developing World and UN

Camp Roberts to Afghan Elections
Beer for Data

SocialGeo and
Data Sharing Communities

H.O.T
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

Mapping Palestine

we are missing
Neutral Geographic Context
photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/discoste/3069220022/

Bethlehem August 2008
Engineers without Borders
Engineering Association

Testing Our Mapping
Assumptions

Not Easy!
Security/ Heat!/
Volunteers to Job Creation

The State of the Maps
Paper Maps, Geodata Sharing, Piracy

Mappers!

From Hebron to Ramallah to Jenin

the first
“Palestinian Spy Satellite”
(kite photography)

Gaza January 2009
no decent maps anywhere

Call out for help

Yahoo! imagery

Tidal wave of crowdsourcing

Collect existing data sources
and free data
UN, Commercial, NGO, EU, Wikipedia, USA, News

Southern Gaza
Remote Mappers, 7 days

Fundraiser for Imagery
5k GBP in days

2m, mid-January
from Digital Globe

JumpStart enters
Gaza in March

local knowledge

Gaza City today

Applications and Use
Nationalized Routing

Arabic Maps

Gaza Incident Map

Gaza Tourist Map

Map Cake!

Conflicts?
name, name:ar, name:he
settlements

Map Kibera Details
* Oct 9 AfricaGathering Conference in UK
* Oct 14 CrisisMapping Conference in Cleveland
* Jubal travelling to region starting in October
* Oct 20 Mikel and Erica arrive Nairobi
* Oct 26 AfricaGIS
* Oct 30 WhereKampala
* Oct 31 Kelele
* Nov 1 Start Kibera
* Possible early completion and move to other
areas
* Nov 14(?) Orgazinational Outreach
Workshop/Symposium
* Nov 21 Finish
* Nov 25-27 AFRICOMM 2009, Mozambique

Potential Partners and Allies
Venue/Volunteers: Carolina for Kibera,
Kibera Community Youth
Media: Radio Kibera, Nairobits
InfoActivist NGOs: Wazimba, SodNET, Fahamu
Tech Community: Ushahidi, kelele, Mobile
Boot Camp, skunkwerks
Agencies: UNHCR, UNICEF, Google
AND...?

What do we collect?
* roads and paths and rail
* wells
* pit latrines / sewer
* medical facilities
* schools
* churches
* businesses
* community organizations
* administrative units
... and whatever else is useful?

Sustainability and Reproducibility
Workshops
One or two day workshop with CBOs, NGOs, international
orgs, govt, to raise awareness of Map Kibera, gather
requirements and the possibilities of open data and
open source. Gather needs, brainstorm and help spur
pilot projects. A select few easy wins may be quickly
implemented the local tech community.
Geeks
WhereCampAfrica
Focused Partnerships

What will happen when the invisible slums are made
visible? The tools for mapping these new geographies
are in hand .. not centralized or a tool of authority,
but empowering to all and making dialogue inevitable.
Will residents see mapping as a way to exert their
presence and protect themselves? Or is information
vulnerability? Will authorities react negatively,
seeing this as another attempt at legitimacy? Or
positively, as information gathering for invasions and
control?
Is it possible that geographical political situations
might improve if we all openly contribute to and
debate within an artifact, with data, in the map?

Map Kibera
http://www.rockburger.com/kiberawiki/
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Humanitarian_OSM_Team
http://www.slideshare.net/mikel_maron
http://brainoff.com/
mikel@osmfoundation.org