Humanitarian mapping

Missing Maps Brno

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Teams from Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, and other humanitarian organizations often operate in areas for which there are insufficiently detailed maps. Without maps, it is impossible to plan vaccination campaigns, evaluate health data or perform epidemiological analyses.

That is why humanitarian mapping was created. As part of it, humanitarian organizations and volunteers worldwide make maps of crisis-prone areas based on satellite images. Volunteers from different countries can thus contribute to mapping remotely from their homes' safety, updating maps in regions affected by disease or natural disasters, coordinating teams in the field, or planning health activities.

OpenStreetMap, a free editable world map environment, is used for this. Humanitarian mapping in OpenStreetMap is coordinated and technically ensured by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. Together with important humanitarian organizations, he is the founder of the worldwide Missing Maps project. The Czech and Slovak community is an integral part of it, including our Missing Maps Brno group.

The Czech and Slovak community of the Missing Maps project are among the most active in the world - in terms of the number of mapping volunteers, the number of mapathons, and the amount of data created. The Czech and Slovak community is in close contact with Doctors Without Borders. But we also create data for other humanitarian organizations.

Anyone can map independently from home (you can learn more on these beginner pages), but it's more fun to map with a group of friends with whom you can debate and share experiences. That is why mapping meetings are organized where a group of volunteers maps a certain area together. These meetings are called mapathons. Their content is not only joint mapping. The participants learn something about the mapped area and why a humanitarian organization's intervention is needed in the given place. Mapathon participants can also attend various types of training, where they gain new knowledge on how to map better - from beginners to advanced mappers to controllers of the created data. Mapathon is a unique opportunity to learn about mapping, improve your skills or help others who are just learning.

The first Czech mapathon took place in May 2016 in Prague. The second Czech city where the mapathon took place was Brno - in November 2016. Since then, mapathons have been organized regularly in Brno. Our group of organizers under the name Missing Maps Brno contains mapathons in Brno in various places: at the Department of Geography, as part of various conferences, or in companies that decide to host the mapathon on their premises. Members of the Missing Maps Brno organizing team participate in the organization of mapathons in other cities of the Czechia and Slovakia. Many of the members of Missing Maps Brno are connected with the Department of Geography - we include teachers, PhD students, students, and graduates.

We are very grateful to the Department of Geography for the opportunity to use the premises and technology of the institute and promote humanitarian mapping among students!

In a classic mapathon, volunteers gather in one place and map together. The advantage is that the volunteers can advise each other, and after the mapathon, they can go together for a beer if they want.

During the pandemic (in the first half of 2020), many mapathons moved to the Internet, and online mapathons emerged. Their advantage is that even those for whom the location of a classic mapathon is too far away can participate. It is often impossible to determine whether the mapathon is organized by Brno, Prague, etc. mapathon. Organizers and participants from various cities in the Czechia and Slovakia participate. The following list, therefore, contains only a few Brno mapathons in 2020-2022. However, the organizers of Missing Maps Brno were not lazy at that time. They helped (and continue to help) with online mapathons organized by other groups of the Czech and Slovak community of the Missing Maps project.

In recent months, the organizers have been trying to restore the classic mapathons, where everyone maps (and has fun) together in one place. Still, at the same time, they want to keep the advantage of an online mapathon - the possibility of remote participants connecting online. Thus, hybrid mapathons were born, which combine mapping in a group at a certain location with the possibility of joining the mapathon online from other cities. In 2022, the Missing Maps Brno group also participated in the organization of these hybrid Brno mapathons.

By the way, do you know that one person can check the data for 36 hours during a three-hour mapathon? Yes, it is possible without a time machine. If you're wondering how this is possible, ask us at one of the next mapathons. We will be happy to teach you!


Missing Maps Brno contact

Mapathons in Brno
  • April 2024: April Brno Missing Maps mapathon at the Department of Geography
    - event on Facebook, poster, photo
    - result: Eva Adamová from the organization Médecins Sans Frontières told us about her experiences from missions in South Sudan and Angola. For Médecins Sans Frontières we mapped 11445 buildings in the Homa Bay area of Kenya (task 15740) to help care for chronically ill patients. There were 45 participants - 20 on site and 25 online.
  • November 2023: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
    - event on Facebook
    - result: Mapped buildings in the West Darfur region in Sudan and Homa Bay region in Kenya for Médecins Sans Frontières.
  • November 2023: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the OpenAlt 2023 conference
    - event on conference website, Facebook
    - result: Mapped 3837 buildings for Médecins Sans Frontières. We focused on the West Darfur region, where there is very heavy fighting. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing this area, often going to neighboring Chad, where they live very bad conditions on the border.
  • June 2023: Missing Maps mapathon in Logio Praha and Brno
    - event on web, Facebook
    - result: Mapped 6740 buildings in Chad and Honduras for Médecins Sans Frontières.
    - photos from Prague and from Brno: Google Docs
  • March 2023: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
    - event on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
    - result: Mapping buildings (project 14280) in the Magaria region of southern Niger for Médecins Sans Frontières. In total, about 10,000 buildings were mapped. Mapathon reached the maximum possible number of registered participants - 25 on site and 15 online.
    - mapathon photos: 1, 2
    - video report from the mapathon on the student news portal Stisk online
    - article about the mapathon on the geocommunity.sk website
  • September 2022: Missing Maps Brno hybrid mapathon at the OpenAlt conference
    - event on conference website, Facebook
    - result: Mapping waterways, roads, villages and buildings in the Gummi region of northern Nigeria for Médecins Sans Frontières. In total, about 5,900 buildings, 150 km of roads and 50 km of watercourses were mapped.
    - mapathon recording
    -
    mapathon photogallery
  • June 2022: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
    - event on Facebook
    - result: 2543 buildings mapped and much more data checked in 2 projects of Médecins Sans Frontières projects - southern Madagascar and Kounougou refugee camp in Chad. Summary of results.
    - mapathon photos: 1, 2, 3
  • November 2021: Missing Maps Brno online mapathon
    - event on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
    - result: 5757 buildings and 2.75 km² of residential areas mapped in 2 MSF projects in Nigeria (Sabon Birni region and Illela region)
  • February 2020: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
    - event on Facebook
  • February 2020: Missing Maps Brno mapathon in the PyLadies Brno group
  • January 2020: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the DevConf conference
    - event on conference website
  • December 2019: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at Kiwi.com company
    - event on Facebook
  • November 2019: Missing Maps Brno mapathon on the XV. FFDM – Film festival for teenagers and young adults
    - event on Facebook
  • November 2019: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the OpenAlt conference
    - event on conference website
  • October 2019: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at RedHat company
    - event on Facebook
  • June 2019: Missing Maps Brno mapathon in the Kafara Cultural Center
    - event on Facebook
  • April 2019: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at Kiwi.com company
    - event on Facebook
  • March 2019: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at Clevermaps company
    - event on Clevermaps website
  • February 2019: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
  • December 2018: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
  • November 2018: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at Clevermaps company
  • November 2018: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the OpenAlt conference
    - event on conference website
  • June 2018: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
  • April 2018: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
    - event on Facebook
  • February 2018: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
    - event on Facebook
  • November 2017: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
  • October 2017: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
  • June 2017: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
  • April 2017: Brněnský Missing Maps mapathon as part of the Médecins Sans Frontières exhibition
    - report about exhibition on MSF website
  • March 2017: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
  • December 2016: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the Department of Geography
  • November 2016: Missing Maps Brno mapathon at the OpenAlt conference
    - event on conference website
Resources for information about mapathons and the Missing Maps project

About project:

  • https://www.missingmaps.org - official website of the Missing Maps international project
  • https://www.hotosm.org - the official website of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, which covers humanitarian mapping projects around the world. One of the projects involved is the Missing Maps project.

For those interested who want to get involved in mapping or organizing mapathons:

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