All over the world on Saturday, August 9th, groups are getting together to map and party for the 10th anniversary of the OpenStreetMap project. What are your plans? Are you having a Mapathon? A party? Something new and awesome? We’d love to know!
Events for the US are already being planned in Kansas City, San Francisco, Denver, and Washington DC, and we’ll be joined by other groups in Canada, Europe, and Asia.
If you’re planning a birthday Mapathon, please add your event to the wiki page. And whether you’ll be mapping, hacking, or doing something else, you can also list your event on the OpenStreetMap 10th anniversary page.
This is all you need to know to host your own Mapathon:
- Your Mapathon can be an outside surveying event or an inside editing event or both.
- If you’re inside, find a location with fast internet and a place to sit for everyone. Remind attendees to bring a computer, mouse, and any other devices you’ll need for your event.
- Announce the event through local mailing lists, blogs or social networks. To broaden your audience, it helps hosting with organizations that have their own networks - an art space for instance, a community center, a company or a library.
- Design your event friendly to newcomers, make sure there’s someone there to explain to first timers the fundamentals of OpenStreetMap and show them the first steps of editing and surveying.
- There’s always something to map. If you’re running short of ideas, take a look at tools like MapRoulette or Battle Grid to jump start editing.
- There is only one rule: anything you upload to OpenStreetMap should contain the hashtag #mapathon in the comment.
Photo: Phaedra.
