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Last active August 29, 2015 14:17
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For Government, OpenStreetMap is More than Excellent Data. It's a Transformation.
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Governments value OpenStreetMap data, no doubt. It is the base map data in times of crisis, like the West Africa Ebola response; and everyday to locate services, like X. As governments deepen their experience with OSM, the culture of open community data and open source seeps into business practice. This is leading to transformed relationships between institutions and the public, and within institutions, all while creating the best map in the entire world.

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Over the first six months of my Presidential Innovation Fellowship, I've discovered and rediscovered nodes of incredible mappers in the federal government. The Peace Corps Mappy Hours with returned volunteers. The USGS National Map, making use of OSM infrastructure. Fantastic work across USAID. The incredible cartography and flexible data approach of NPMaps. Experiments with OSM and imagery processing at NASA. My own focus at State Department with MapGive.

What's promising goes beyond this laundry list of cool OSM work in government (and Alex Barth delved into more detail a while back). New opportunities arise when we collaborate together in all aspects of our work, just like we map together in OSM. For instance, last year, a group of agencies pooled resources and guidance to redevelop the HOT tasking manager, which has performed amazingly through an intensive year of mapping.

This year we "OSM Institutions" have started gathering regularly, talking about common needs, and "not just talking". We've been collaborating on guides for mapping new places, with great design. We've shared expertise and ideas to develop mapping projects, imagery services and co-organized events like the upcoming MapOff. We're pooling our best case studies and strategic communications to make the case for OSM across government.

We'll certainly build momentum towards the upcoming HOT Summit in our geographic nexus of DC, but we want to expand this kind of lightweight, hands on partnership to Geneva, Monrovia, London, and Manila. For this, we look forward to the State of the Map US conference, the largest OSM conference ever, and held on the global stage of the UN General Assembly, in New York City. Not only is NYC demonstrating the best of local government working with OSM, but the UN invites governments from around the world to absorb and adopt open community culture. See you there.

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