Crowdsourced Mapping to Prevent FGM in Tanzania

Thanks to your generosity and the hard work of our thousands of volunteers Crowd2Map has a busy ahead.  

First we are working with  people from Heidelberg University to try and incorporate machine learning techniques to develop the map of Tanzania. 

We are also organising mapping and data collection training in many areas of Tanzania throughout August and starting with a session for the council in new area Babati, from funds kindly donated by Salesforce.

Then at the end of August we are running various workshops at the huge global FOSS4G/HOTOSM conference, where Neema the mapping leader and FGM activist from Mara will be delivering a keynote.

We are also launching a pilot FGM reporting system via Ushahidi with support from the UNFPA which we hope will save many girls in the major cutting season expected in December.

So thank you again for your generosity in supporting this project mapping Tanzania to help end FGM.

For Open Data on March 3rd we organised a free 3 day training conference on how Open Data and Mapping using OpenStreetMap can aid development in Tanzania.  Over 90 people from across Tanzania attended the event at the Institute of Rural Development Planning in Mwanza, including community mapping groups from Kigoma, Kagera, Mara and other regions, students from IRDP Mwanza and Dodoma, as well as representatives from Tanzania Red Cross, Tanzania Wildlife Service, Uwezo and many other organisations.You can read more about it here.

We were delighted to attend the Data for Development Festival in Bristol in March where we spoke to many people about Crowd2Map, including members of the Tanzanian parliament, National Bureau of Statistics and Ministry of Lands.  We also met many people involved in machine learning for mapping, including someone from Gates Foundation who gave us the AI generated data for buildings in Tanzania which we hope will be extremely useful.

On May 10th and 11th we are participating in the Mozilla Global Sprint, which is held in over 60 cities around the world and online.  We are hoping to get many people involved in mapping, validating and improving our project.  There is more information here. 

In July we are talking about Crowd2Map at the State of the Map conference in Milan, and in August we are at the HOT Summit in Dar es Salaam.

Thank you again for your generosity that allows us to continue mapping Tanzania to help protect girls from FGM and to aid development.

Links:

• Open Data Day Training
• Interview with Crowd2Map about Mozilla Global Sprint