Friends at Inveneo are putting volunteer-created OSM maps of the Philippines onto these Nexus tablets. They do thousands of them at a time; they get the tablets from corporate donations. The tablets go to relief workers in the area.
The tablets are loaded with the latest edition of OpenStreetMap for the region.Â
You can see how much the mapping was enhanced.Â
A lot of the work was coordinated using the HOT tasking manager, which anyone can use and start mapping in minutes. All you do is trace imagery. It's quite easy, especially now that you can use the iD editor.Â
The map comparison shows the kind of map that the volunteers can make almost overnight during periods of heavy mapping. (Map comparison image via @rbanick.)
Great to see the work of the HOT volunteers going into wide circulation, when I noticed them working on these tablets, and learned what they were for, I was sure that they would have the HOT maps, which are some of the best up-to-date information for the area as usual.Â
I think this kind of project makes it clear why the OSM universe is so important in humanitarian software.
