Crowd2Map Tanzania project to break record for OpenStreetMap 13th anniversary

Crowd2Map Tanzania crowdsourced mapping project, is organizing what they hope will be the largest worldwide mapping party to date, commemorating 13 years of OpenStreetMap. The event will begin on 13th August, 12:00 BST and will last for 24 hours.

“The “mapathon” is open to everyone – teams and individuals are welcome to join the mapping effort online or hold a local event at any time on the day,” said Crowd2Map via a statement.

“Any point added into OpenStreetMap in Tanzania with the tag #crowd2map in the 24 hour period will count towards the record-breaking goal,” the statement added.

Crowd2Map Tanzania is a grassroots project set in partnership between Tanzania Development Trust, Human Computation Institute and supporting organizations.

Since the beginning of the project in late 2015, its volunteer base grew to over 2000 mappers across the world, as well as locally in Tanzania.

The project has put over 1.5 million buildings and over 105 000 km of roads on the map in rural Tanzania via OpenStreetMap.

One of the main goals of the project is to map regions where female genital mutilation (FGM) is prevalent, thus supporting efforts to eradicate this practice.

Having better maps helped prevent 2257 girls from being cut during the last cutting season in Tanzania.

To break the biggest mapathon record, the Crowd2Map Tanzania project team is hoping to involve at least 1500 people from over 30 countries in the mapping effort during the 24 hours of the event. Full instructions are here.