Open Mapping Hub - Asia-Pacific

𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝘂𝗿𝘂 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 ✨

It has been exactly a year since State of the Map 2025 was held in Metro Manila, Philippines by the OpenStreetMap Foundation and OpenStreetMap Philippines.

To expand participation and representation at the event, HOT’s Open Mapping Hub - Asia-Pacific launched a scholarship to support 13 in-person and over 50 online scholars with SotM 2025 event access tickets.

Today, let’s look back at the event through the experiences of some of our in-person scholars!

🌟 To our scholars – and the broader Open Mapping Guru and open mapping community across the region – it’s been very exciting to hear your stories from SotM 2025 and continue following your journeys since.

We’re looking forward to seeing you continue to collaborate and shape the open mapping movement in your communities and beyond! 🌏🗺️

📍 Read the article: bit.ly/sotm-scholar
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Thank you to our scholars for sharing their stories and insights: Fathima Hazna, Mark Ducusin, Louise Paje, S***a, Pham Minh Tam, Noman Bin Hossain

📢Urgent Mapping support needed for Dawei Flood 2026!
🌊၂၀၂၆ ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ မှာ တနင်္သာရီတိုင်း ထားဝယ်ဒေသတစ်ခွင်မှာ ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့တဲ့ ရေကြီးရေလျှံမှုနှင့် တောင်ပြိုမှုများကြောင့် လူအသက်များနှင့် အဆောက်အအုံများထိခိုက်ပျက်စီးမှုများဖြစ်စေခဲ့ပါတယ်။
စက်တင်ဘာလ ၃၀ရက်နေ့အထိ စာရင်းများအရ သေဆုံးသူ ၃၂ ဦးရှိလာတဲ့အပြင် ဒေသခံဒါဇင်ချီ ပျောက်ဆုံးနေဆဲ ဖြစ်ပြီး ဘေးလွတ်ရာပြောင်းရွှေ့နေရသည့် ပြည်သူများအတွက် အကူအညီများလိုအပ်လျက်ရှိပါတယ်။
🗺️အရေးပေါ်ကယ်ဆယ်ရေး၊ ရွှေ့ပြောင်းရေး၊ ထောက်ပံ့ကူညီရေးနှင့် ပြန်လည်ထူထောင်ရေးလုပ်ငန်းတွေမှာ ပါဝင်ဆောင်ရွက်နေတဲ့ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများအတွက် လိုအပ်တဲ့ မြေပုံအချက်အလက်များကို အလျှင်အမြန်ပံ့ပိုးပေးနိုင်ရန်အတွက် HOT Tasking Manager - Building Mapping Projects တွေမှာ ပါဝင်ရေးဆွဲအားဖြည့်ပေးနိုင်ပါပြီရှင်။
ပါဝင်ရေးဆွဲနိုင်တဲ့ Project များ -
🏠 Building Mapping : Launglon Township https://tasks.hotosm.org/projects/67029
🏠Building Mapping : Thayetchaung Township: https://tasks.hotosm.org/projects/67062
🏠Building Mapping : Dawei Township, North: https://tasks.hotosm.org/projects/67063
📣တစ်ဦးတစ်ယောက်ချင်းစီတိုင်းကမြေပုံပေါ်တွင်ရေးဆွဲလိုက်သည့် အဆောက်အအုံတိုင်းသည် မြေပြင်မှာကူညီပေးနေတဲ့ ကယ်ဆယ်ရေးအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ နှင့် လူမှုကူညီရေးအဖွဲ့အစည်းများအတွက် သွားလာရေးနှင့် ကူညီကယ်ဆယ်ရေးအတွက် အထောက်အကူပြုနိုင်မှာ ဖြစ်တဲ့အတွက် OpenStreetMap မြေပုံရေးဆွဲနေသူများ၊ Volunteer တွေနဲ့ စိတ်ပါဝင်စားကြတဲ့ မည်သူမဆို ပါဝင်ကူညီကြဖို့ ဖိတ်ခေါ်လိုက်ပါတယ်ရှင်။
📣လူထုအင်အားနဲ့ ပူးပေါင်းကူညီနိုင်ဖို့အတွက် Post ကို လည်း Share ပေးပြီး တစ်ဖက်တစ်လှမ်းကနေ ပံ့ပိုးပေးနိုင်ပါတယ်ရှင်။
💪OSM ဖြင့် ပိုမိုကောင်းမွန်သော မြေပုံများကို အတူတကွဖန်တီးသွားကြပါစို့။💪

Open Mapping Hub - Asia-Pacific
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)

Collaborative with Open Mapping Hub - Asia-Pacific and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)

🌍 Geospatial Action Against Dengue: Mapping Waste Hotspots and Stagnant Water in Eravur Pattu.

Join us for a Collaborative Mapping Activity featuring a hands-on training workshop and field mapping focused on identifying waste hotspots and stagnant water areas to support dengue prevention efforts in Eravur Pattu.

📅 Day 1: 5th October 2026 | 9:00 PM – 4:00 AM
📅 Day 2: 6th October 2026 | 9:00 PM – 4:00 AM

This initiative is supported by Open Mapping Guru Pro + Events 2026 Community Grants, in collaboration with the YouthMappers Chapter, Eastern University Sri Lanka and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team's Open Mapping Hub - Asia-Pacific

We hope this initiative will encourage collaborative mapping and community-based action towards a safer and healthier environment.

+Event
#2026

𝗨𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗼, 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗼𝗿-𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲! 🇹🇱

A lot has happened since our last field update from the 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (𝗠𝟰𝗦) project! 🌿🗺️

Since the beginning of July, our local partner, Konservasaun FLORA & FAUNA, and our local team of enumerators have been out in the field, mapping seagrass across two villages: Sabuli and Wenunuc.

Take a look at some of the field mapping moments in Sabuli! 📸

"The fieldwork has been a valuable experience to me, especially in collecting seagrass data in the field. I learned how to take photographs and enter data using the KoboCollect application.

At times, fieldwork was challenging because of road conditions, weather, and sea conditions. However, by working together with the team, I was able to overcome these obstacles. This experience will be an important learning opportunity for me in my future work and projects." – Salsinha da Costa Aleixo, enumerator

✨ We’re excited for the team to continue the community-led mapping activity through the end of October. With each field visit, we are building a growing dataset that will strengthen the foundation for future seagrass conservation and research.

Looking forward to sharing more updates in the future!

📷 Photo: Patricio Ximenes and Helder Lemos / Konservasaun Flora no Fauna

Explore more photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hotosm/albums/72177720335681815
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The Monitoring for Seagrass Conservation project is a joint initiative between Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s Open Mapping Hub - Asia-Pacific and Konservasaun FLORA & FAUNA, funded by the UK Government through Darwin Initiative. Biodiversity Challenge Funds

KoboToolbox Mapillary

🌸 𝗝𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗻 𝗗𝗶𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀: 𝗙𝗢𝗦𝗦𝟰𝗚 𝗛𝗶𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗺𝗮 & 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝗔𝘀𝗶𝗮 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗢𝘀𝗮𝗸𝗮 🇯🇵

More snapshots from Foss4g 2026 Hiroshima and State of the Map Asia 2026 Osaka: fun and memorable moments meeting and reconnecting with Gurus and the OSM community across Asia-Pacific and beyond – as seen through the lens of our GIS Specialist, Honey Fombuena. 📸🗺️

(P.s.: Check out the cool hats we’re rocking! 🤠)

It was such a blast to catch up with everyone. Until next time! ✨

💬 Were you there at FOSS4G or SotM Asia? What event should we all meet up at next? Tell us in the comments! ⬇️

📷 Photo: Honey Fombuena, Dibikshya Shrestha, Ponciano da Costa de Jesus, SotM Asia 2026 Osaka

Osaka, we had so much fun (楽しかったです)! 🇯🇵✨

After presenting about the 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (𝗠𝟰𝗦) project at Foss4g 2026 Hiroshima, our GIS Specialist, Honey Fombuena, shared about the project again at State of the Map Asia 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗢𝘀𝗮𝗸𝗮 – this time highlighting OSM Sandbox and its potential for experimental mapping of unique features such as seagrass. 🌿

In addition to M4S, Honey also presented about the 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝘂𝗿𝘂 program, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s network of local mapping champions. This year, the program launched focused capacity-building efforts across four regional hubs, including remote seagrass mapping for 20 Gurus in Asia-Pacific.

During her presentation on Open Mapping Guru, Honey shared: "You don't have to start as an expert. You start by learning, contributing, helping others, and eventually, becoming someone that others can rely on. That is what being an Open Mapping Guru is really about, not just making maps, but building the people and communities behind them."

Thank you, Osaka. We had such a great time and can’t wait to meet everyone again at next year’s State of the Map Asia! 🌏🗺️
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The Monitoring for Seagrass Conservation project is a joint initiative between Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s Open Mapping Hub - Asia-Pacific and Konservasaun FLORA & FAUNA, funded by the UK Government through Darwin Initiative. Biodiversity Challenge Funds

📷 Photo: Ayame Otsuki

🗺️ Snapshots from earlier this month, when Open Mapping Gurus from across the Asia-Pacific region gathered for a two-day Solidarity Mapathon to support validation for the Nepal Floods response.

Thank you to all the Gurus who contributed their time and skills – and to everyone who joined the mapping efforts! 🙌

🗾 𝗙𝗢𝗦𝗦𝟰𝗚 𝗛𝗶𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗺𝗮 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗦𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 – 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝟰𝗦 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁: 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗼𝗿-𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗙𝗢𝗦𝗦 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄𝘀 🗺️🌿

What happens when communities use open-source tools to map, monitor, and protect their seagrass ecosystems?

Through the 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (𝗠𝟰𝗦) project, Honey Fombuena (GIS Specialist for HOT's Open Mapping Hub - Asia-Pacific) shared how community-led seagrass monitoring and conservation efforts in Metinaro, Timor-Leste are moving beyond manual, paper-based methods toward a streamlined digital FOSS workflow. 📱✈️

Using tools such as DroneTM, Mapillary, and KoboToolbox, communities are now leading mapping and data collection efforts to establish the first baseline seagrass data in their area.

"With accessible tools, in most cases just a smartphone, the communities can monitor and report signs of degradation that would directly affect the fisheries and coastal resources they rely on. This way, we can be sure that the people generating the data have the deepest understanding of what "normal" versus "degraded" seagrass habitats look like." – Honey Fombuena

We’re grateful for the opportunity to share how community-led mapping, when combined with accessible, low-barrier open-source technology, can strengthen conservation action and lead to local data ownership and long-term stewardship. Foss4g 2026 Hiroshima

Looking forward to more opportunities to share the ongoing M4S journey and connect with others passionate about community-driven innovation and tech for good! 📱🌱✨
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📍 Learn more about the M4S project: https://bit.ly/monitoring-seagrass

The Monitoring for Seagrass Conservation project is a joint initiative between Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s Open Mapping Hub - Asia-Pacific and Konservasaun FLORA & FAUNA, funded by the UK Government through Darwin Initiative. Biodiversity Challenge Funds

📷 Photo: Sam Woodcock / Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

🗺️🌊 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝗙𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲: 𝗣𝗮𝗸𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲 – 𝗠𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗙𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗕𝘂𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝘆

30 days of mapping. 200+ mappers from more than 50 countries. Around 11,000 structures mapped.

That’s what collaborative mapping made possible during the 𝗣𝗮𝗸𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 last year, specifically in Buner Valley.

Led by OpenStreetMap Pakistan, in collaboration with Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s Open Mapping Hub - Asia-Pacific, the campaign came at a time when access to up-to-date, open geospatial data in the country was increasingly critical.

Through the HOT Tasking Manager, volunteers from around the world mapped flood-affected areas in Pakistan, including Buner Valley, which was significantly impacted by the August 2025 flash floods.

📍 These colorful map visualizations by Ammaz Khan (OSM Pakistan) illustrate the scale of the collective effort behind the mapping, with each color representing a different contributor and each dot a mapped structure.

💬 Reflecting on the 2025 flood mapping efforts, Ammaz shared: "In the event of an emergency, we can act speedily and organize mapathons to identify affected flood zones. Pakistan especially suffers from isolated siloing of datasets. These, we want to make fully accessible and transparent to help and assist as many people as possible."

📝 Learn more in Ammaz’s blog: https://medium.com//how-i-won-the-flood-pk-hackathon-fa535eebd601
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📍 As of today, the work continues. 𝗢𝗦𝗠 𝗣𝗮𝗸𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗺𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀. Join now: https://bit.ly/PakistanFloods2026

💬 Join the OSM Pakistan community on WhatsApp: https://chat.whatsapp.com/FNcENhRbGMPESdfuxXnYDV

🔎 Follow OSM Pakistan’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/119074176