Off to Join the Circus!
Well not really off to join the circus, most of you probably already know about my employment change. I’m now working for the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. I always referred to working on OpenStreetMap projects full-time as “running off to join the OpenStreetMap.” That isn’t to say people haven’t done it previous, I think it is just is something many would love to do and few have figured out how to. Much like joining the circus, though you trade in your clown nose for a GPS. Or at least it can take a bit of a leap of faith in someways.
Anyway I ended my full-time employment at GeoIQ on May 16th and began transitioning over to working for HOT. I loved working for GeoIQ, my coworkers were wonderful and I really believe in the technology that was being built. However last year after going to Haiti and working remotely on other projects HOT was helping on, I really found a calling. Working on things for HOT is yet to have felt like work and I hope it never does. After the transitioning my real first day of only working for HOT was about June 15th. That day I attended a meeting in New York City with other members from the Volunteer Technical Communities and the United Nations (OCHA to be specific). I thought this was a good kick-off to my new position, because it is one of my goals for myself. To be able to help coordinate with large organizations and other tech response groups so we can all be more effective. I also hope to do some fundraising for HOT so we can coordinate better when disasters do happen. There is a need to have infrastructure, software to better assist with mapping as well as individuals to help coordinate. This items don’t always translate into the need for funding, but I think there are going to be situations where it will.
A couple days later that week I switched to the other role I want to play as well. Coordinate projects and doing field work when possible. On June 17th I left the United States to return to Indonesia. Here I’m working on a pilot project to use OpenStreetMap to help collect information to be fed into risk models. Myself and Jeff Haack are here and mainly focused on giving workshops on using OpenStreetMap, setting up simple tools to allow people to use the data and coordinate between the interested organizations. At the end of the three months we’ll look at how things went and determine with our partners if the pilot can turn into a project for all of Indonesia. Saying all of Indonesia sounds scary, since it is 17,000 islands and many diverse people. Though so far everyone we’ve worked with has been enthusiastic and quick to pick-up the tools as well, so I’m excited to see if it can work. I think if things keep going the way they have so far it will.
So I will be in Indonesia until mid-August, but after that I’ll be a bit all over the place. If I happen to coincide with where you are maybe we can meet-up. As always the best way to keep up with me is on Twitter and hopefully I’ll keep up the HOT Twitter Account better as well.
June 27, 2011
Tags: employment, geoiq, hot, indonesia Posted in: hot, OSM, Uncategorized
5 Responses
You inspire me!
Congratulations Kate!
Congratulations on following your muse! The entire world will benefit from your focus and drive.
gay
working on OpenStreetMap
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