[HOT] Leaving my Missing Maps job

Pete Masters pedrito1414 at googlemail.com
Wed Feb 22 16:19:02 UTC 2017


Hello all, I hope you are well...

Apologies for using the mailing list to send a personal message, but I feel
like (and hope) it isn't inappropriate.

My time as coordinator for Missing Maps at MSF is coming to an end - last
week I accepted a new position within MSF working on innovation process and
how we better approach field problems and opportunities. I wanted to let
this community know personally for a few different reasons....

Firstly, to say thanks for the education. It has been an absolute pleasure
to work with such a varied bunch of dedicated, passionate and clever
people. I have been an MSF fanboy for a long time and I am now a HOT and
OSM fanboy too. My job over the past two and a half years has been to try,
as much as possible, to find the overlaps and opportunities between these
two (very different) organisations and communities. As I hope you have
noticed, I have tried to connect the dots between what the HOT and Missing
Maps community can do for MSF and the impact that that volunteering has on
real people (both our staff in the field and our patients).  What you
probably don't know is that I also evangelise HOT / OSM within MSF - not
just for the mapping, but for the principles of openness and teamwork and
sharing that make mapping and collaborating on such a scale possible.

Secondly, because you should know that what you have accomplished during
this past two and a half years through HOT activations and Missing Maps
projects is pretty unprecedented in MSF. Operational people and medical
people within MSF now *expect* to be able to rely on Missing Maps and HOT
to deliver data for decision making in the places we work. The quality of
your work and the dedication you show (often at very short notice) has
taken the project from a suspiciously viewed, disruptive, unorthodox and
often misunderstood project in MSF into a tool that the people delivering
aid on the ground value and want. That's huge.

Thirdly, I appreciate that there are massive challenges ahead. Discussion
started by Fred on validation is high up that list. As is the scale of the
supply and demand from organisations like MSF. As is how we leverage the
data these organisations are collecting on the ground as part of their
day-to-day to enrich the OSM database (but including how we do that in a
resposible and sustainable way). I have no doubt that together we (I fully
intend to stay a part of the HOT community despite the change in day job)
can address these challenges and whatever comes after. I would like to
offer this opportunity to feed back to me any thoughts you may have on the
future of Missing Maps and MSF or any other feedback you may have.

Lastly, there is going to be a very cool job available at MSF UK. Not an
easy job by any means (the phrase jack of all trades doesn't do it
justice), but a massively fulfilling one. Knowing the talent available
amongst you, I'd strongly encourage you to take a look when the job is
advertised.

That's it really. It's not goodbye by any means and I look forward to
continuing these discussions beyond the end of my MSF Missing Maps job...
Apologies for the lack of brevity!

Cheers,

Pete


-- 
*Pete Masters*
Missing Maps Project Coordinator
+44 7921 781 518

missingmaps.org <http://www.missingmaps.org/>

*@pedrito1414* <https://twitter.com/TheMissingMaps>
*@theMissingMaps* <https://twitter.com/TheMissingMaps>
*facebook.com/MissingMapsProject*
<https://www.facebook.com/MissingMapsProject>
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