Hi all,
I’ve really gotten into doing traces, converting waypoints, and improving the maps here in Kampala, Uganda and Bujambura, Burundi. I’ve already talked to several people, both academics and non-profits who are excited by having useful and relatively accurate map data for this region, but as much as I’d like to continue to do this for free I obviously can’t. I’ve got some leads on grants or funding, but I’m curious if anyone within the OSM community might know of specific people or organizations I should be contacting to see if I can get my expenses covered while I continue this project of love.
Minor background, I’m an IT guy who was in DC up until 9 months ago when I got laid off and it’s a long story, but I ended up here in Kampala and have been hanging out on a friends couch and doing random projects. I recently bought an eTrex Legend HCx and have already rendered the maps for Eastern Africa into a Garmin compatible file that I posted on my website. http://blog.wonderfullyrich.net/garmin-osm-of-eastern-africa/
Ideally, this would obviously be more like the http://www.mapkibera.org project that happened in Kenya–as it would build local capacity–but in the mean time I’m interested in spending time working on generally improving the data for OSM here in Eastern Africa on an individual level. Of course if anyone’s interested in funding another slum mapping, there is a “slum” in Bujambura, Burundi which could be similarly mapped, and I even think I’ve got kids who’d be able to do it as well as an HIV aids project that could benefit from using the map.
If anyone has ideas I’d be appreciative.
Many thanks,
Rich