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<p class="MsoNormal">Today I attended SOTM Africa in Grand-Bassam, Cote d’Ivoire.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was a genuinely wonderful experience both for me personally and for OSM. It was organized by both locals and many francophones. People attended from a diverse set of African countries and beyond, and they’re doing an enormous amount
of work to make the map in Africa better. The conference had multiple tracks and many great talks and people. I want to thank them for what I saw.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of the tangential things that grabbed me was <a href="http://africabees.com/">
http://africabees.com/</a> - using drones to map places in a distributed way. Not to distract from
<a href="https://www.opendronemap.org/">https://www.opendronemap.org/</a> which was also represented and awesome.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Every SOTM should have at least one board member present. I’ve already sent my board 2019 questions in, but, I think sending board members to all the SOTM conferences is an obvious thing and I’d push for if elected. It’s something that
should be required. I’m very happy to be wrong but I didn’t meet or see any OSMF board members who attended. It’s confusing, what is more important than attending SOTMs for the board? We can do better.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In any case, please consider attending remote SOTMs, even if it’s a long journey. The positivity and energy was wonderful to experience and it comes on top of a wonderfully different culture.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Best<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Steve<o:p></o:p></p>
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