[HOT] Pakistan Anti-Mapping Legislation: Implications for HOT/OSM

Thu Nov 29 19:36:51 GMT 2012

I have gone through the blog post. I would like to add a few cases of
usefulness of maps in local context e.g what is done and what can be done
using maps for transparency and specially helping Governments understand
data. e.g people dying from factories accidents in residential areas is
very common. what if we enable citizen to report and map factories in
residential areas.

similarly, in Pakistan 2x to 3x people dye in road accidents than bomb
blasts. this is one area where you can mark places where road accidents
occur. plus there can be 100s of implementations for Government, public and
private sector needs.

We just want to keep under radar on our project and do not want to disclose
its status up or running. we just stopped on ground mapping but we are
still continuing our project using other means to use mapping data and
putting up visualization of what data we already have.

happy to speak on skype whatever time suits you best.

Thanks,

Faisal Chohan

TED Senior Fellow | www.ted.com/fellows
Disaster and open data mapper | www.pakreport.org
Co-Founder | www.BrightSpyre.com
Co-Founder | www.cogilent.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Mobile: +1 415 692 7920
Twitter: @faisalchohan
Skype: faisalchohan
Personal Blog: http://faisalchohan.blogspot.com

On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 12:26 AM, Joseph Reeves <iknowjoseph at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Alex, all,
>
> I've gone through your proposed blog post a few times now, it's raised a
> few questions / thoughts. Some are about the issue at hand whilst others
> relate more to HOT's decision making process. Many of these overlap and I'm
> not expecting a detailed reply to the whole thing, but just off the top of
> my head:
>
> This post would fit into the "thought leadership" (that's a phrase I
> picked up during previous blog conversations) category of blogging that we
> arguably could do more of on the HOT blog and which is potentially a very
> powerful output, but..
>
> What is HOT's role in this? Obviously we can act as experts in the field,
> but should we be doing so? The complete quote from globalintegrity.orgreads "the
> proposed legislation is anachronistic and ill-advised, and those with
> influence need to communicate those concerns. That starts with the US
> government and international relief organizations operating in Pakistan,
> which for all of the complicated equities at stake need to appreciate the
> severity of the proposed move and the signals it sends." We, of course, are
> not operating in Pakistan, although there was a remote effort during the
> 2007 floods [0].
>
> Who is the intended audience of the blog post?
>
> Is this post intended as an FYI, or is it an official HOT statement? If
> so..
>
> Can we be a bit more constructive with the blog? That probably sounds more
> harsh than I mean it to be; I'm wondering, however, if there's a way of
> fleshing out the blog post with either our proposals or a set of
> hypothetical workarounds. The Indonesia example, for example, is
> potentially useful to introduce.
>
> Who is responsible for these HOT communications?
>
> Best, Joseph
>
>
> [0] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2010_07_Pakistan_Floods
>
>
> On 28 November 2012 22:00, Alex Barth <alex at mapbox.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Ok, I have created a quick blog post here that could go up on HOT. Kate,
>> Harry, Faisal and others: could this work? Obviously I don't have
>> publishing permissions on hot.osm.org so someone else would have to take
>> this and run the last mile with it. Please feel free to change as you see
>> fit. My intention was to highlight that this could have a real impact on
>> citizen mapping, HOT and OpenStreetMap and that this impact is starting to
>> show now.
>>
>> https://gist.github.com/f657476887f3c84a32b1
>>
>> PS: is anybody from HOT talking to OCHA or GFDRR?
>>
>> On Nov 28, 2012, at 2:40 PM, Faisal Chohan <faisal at cogilent.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I agree with the Alex suggestions. I Iike the idea to write about
>> enefits of Openstreetmap data in disaster, transparency, business use,
>> social issues ( that we are trying to do with sanitation in Rawalpindi),
>> fighting corruption etc and then publish this in International and local
>> media. We can also take good examples from other countries. I am happy to
>> be part of this.
>> >
>> > We tried to enhance and use Openstreetmap for the first time in
>> Pakistan, resisting the use of Google maps that are in much better shape in
>> Pakistan than Openstreetmap, but do not provide any Open Data. Google may
>> comply with Government of Pakistan laws and then can continue improving its
>> maps. But for Opnstreetmap, every individual and group  registering with
>>  GOP will not be possible. Hence, improving and use of the the
>> openstreetmap will be very limited after this law and will discourage
>> innovation in this domain.
>> >
>> > On the case of starting the Rawalpindi mapping, I had one personal bad
>> experience turned into tragedy in the past and that is one of the personal
>> reasons to be careful. But once i have my emotions in control, I am of the
>> point of view to accelerate the project instead of stopping it.
>>
>> Alex Barth
>> http://twitter.com/lxbarth
>> tel (+1) 202 250 3633
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> HOT at openstreetmap.org
>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot
>>
>
>
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