When disaster hits, be it a natural disaster, epidemic, poverty or other crisis, first responders rely on GIS data to access the areas impacted.
Missing Maps is an open-source collaborative effort founded by the American Red Cross, British Red Cross, Medicine Sans Frontiers, and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team where volunteers help to map areas in an effort to ensure that many of the places previously missing from maps can be located and reached.
Millions of edits are made to OpenStreetMap by thousands of volunteers and members of the OpenStreetMap community.
Moved by the Missing Maps objective, “To map the most vulnerable places in the developing world, in order that international and local NGOs and individuals can use the maps and data to better respond to crises affecting the areas,” teams at Microsoft are contributing time, resources and technical expertise to the project.
Since initiating the program at Microsoft, over four thousand employees have been trained in contributing to OpenStreetMap at hundreds of mapathons across the company. With the goal to “put 200 million people ‘on the map’ by 2021,” we hope you are inspired to get involved too!
To learn more about Missing Maps and to start mapping, go to www.missingmaps.org.
- Bing Maps Team