Humanitarian OSM Team/Board Elections 2019

Humanitarian OSM Team Board elections 2019

Current Board of Directors

The current HOT Board of Directors are: Pete Masters (President), Ahasanul Hoque (Vice President), Melanie Eckle (Secretary), Gertrude "Trudy" Hope Namitala (Treasurer) and Nathalie Sidibe (Member at Large). See 'Board' page on the HOT site for descriptions. Board Meeting Minutes can be reviewed here

Timeline

Step	Dates
Nominations	3-17 June, 2019
Discussion (Question and Answer) period (A candidate forum will be organized by the Board of Directors during this period)	19 June - 5 July, 2019
Due date for proposing Ballot Initiatives	23:59 UTC on 7th July, 2019
Ballots distributed and voting period begins	7th July, 2019
Voting period ends	23:59 UTC on 14th July, 2019
Annual General Meeting (AGM) and ratification of election results	Date to be confirmed via a poll of the Membership
Announcement of results	Within 24 hours of AGM

Full Procedures

Nominations for Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Board of Directors

This election, five seats are up for election, all with a two year term. Three of these seats are occupied by Board members whose current terms are ending: Pete Masters, Ahasanul Hoque, Melanie Eckle. Two new seats are available this year because of a Board decision to increase the size of the Board from 5 to 7 members.

The nomination period for the Board of Directors closed June 17, 2019 (23:59 UTC).

Thinking of nominating someone (or yourself) for a Board position? Read the HOT Board Primer first, and add your nominees below.

The nomination period opened at 00:01 UTC 3rd June 2019 and closed 23:59 UTC 17th June 2019.

Candidate Name	Nominator / Supporter(s)	Candidate Nationality/Residence	Why are they an excellent choice?	Link to blog or OSM diary with candidate statement
Pete Masters (OSM: pedrito1414)	Matthew Gibb	UK	I would like to run again for a position on the board. This first term has made me realise how important these board positions are. I have really enjoyed contributing to HOT in this way and working with my fellow board members (both current and former). Happy to write a longer candidate statement soon, but I also think there is some value to consistency in some board positions, especially as we hope to welcome multiple new board members this year and we are in the middle of important governance and community work, including working out how an advisory board might serve to make HOT more effective, sustainable and impactful and how we can better engage with and take advantage of the skills, experience and passion that exists within the membership. I encourage other people to think hard about who else should be nominated and put them forward! We need a range and diversity of skills, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge if we are to continue to support HOT on a pathway of positive evolution.	OSM diary link
Rob Baker (OSM: rrbaker)	Angela Lungati	USA	I’m excited to submit my expression of interest for a seat on the HOT Board. Most of my career is in humanitarian response and international development, spanning across startups, government, finance, and academia. I am currently the Director of the Signal Program for Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Prior to this, I was Lead Technologist for USAID’s Global Development Lab, Officer in the World Bank Innovations Lab, and COO of Ushahidi. I was an early member of HOT, contributing to some of the earliest work in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake, and it’s been amazing to watch HOT grow under inspired leadership and through its incredible community. What I think I uniquely bring to this board is a deep perspective of larger institutions across many sectors and an understanding of their expectations and needs, and through that helping ensure that HOT's efforts are valued and adopted at these levels. That means more consistent output, more transparent practices, and we get there by making sure we find the means to continue to support this community. More detail is in my diary post but I’m proud to know many of the people in this space and will draw from their experience and wisdom along with leverage the broader development community to improve HOT’s presence, value, and ultimately global impact.	OSM diary link
Tasauf A Baki Billah	Jorieke Vyncke	Bangladesh	I would like to nominate Tasauf as candidate for the board of HOT. I met him in January 2015 while mapping Hazaribag and Kamrangirchar in Dhaka for the Missing Maps. From the first moment he got involved he showed leadership. Inspired by HOT and Missing Maps, and motivated by global and local humanitarian causes, he invested all of his time in growing OSM Bangladesh to a sustainable OpenStreetMap community. Over the years he got actively involved with mapping projects in various parts of Bangladesh with MSF, Save the Children, Y Care, American Red Cross, Asia Foundation, World Bank & Asian Development Bank. Tasauf brings in experience from his current role as director of the OpenStreetMap Bangladesh Foundation, founder of the Bangladesh Open Innovation Lab (BOIL) and core member of the organising committee of State of the Map Asia that will take place in Dhaka this year.	OSM diary link
Adam Rowlands (OSM: adamrowlands)	Melanie Eckle	UK	I would like to nominate Adam as a candidate for the board as, over the last years, Adam repeatedly showed his passion for HOT and Missing Maps and supported both in incredible ways, ranging from awareness raising, fundraising and consultancy to mapping. Therefore, he does not only bring a great level of expertise, experiences and networks to the board but he also knows the community and context very well and from different perspectives. In our board nomination chats he emphasized his fascination with HOT as an enabler and his wish to support HOT to achieve more in this regard. Due to all the mentioned points, I think he could be of great value in complementing the other board members' strengths. But also read more in his own words below: "Thanks, Melanie for the support. I'm a passionate supporter of the great work HOT does, and this opportunity to join the Board would enable me to build on my previous experience with HOT, which includes: - Helping set up a corporate mapping community around the globe of 3,500 mappers at Accenture - alongside Rebecca Firth - Running mapathons, including a 900 person mapathon - alongside Pete Masters and Ivan Gayton (see video: https://youtu.be/toQEuT5TNqg) - Supporting the creation of training and advocacy videos by volunteers - Being on the Microgrant review panel in 2018 and 2019 - Personally supporting fundraising for HOT (including via donations-as-gifts at my wedding) - Facilitated the HOT Board Meeting in Ottawa 2017, and the Missing Maps Gathering - As well as my broader experience working with major iNGOs on their innovation and digital strategies/programmes and my current role as the Director of Digital and Innovation at the British Red Cross (including the GIS team who are members of Missing Maps).	OSM Diary Link
Matseliso Thobei Letsie	Geoffrey Kateregga	Lesotho	I would like to nominate Matseliso Thobei Letsie. Tshedy also known as the “Lesotho Mapping Queen” was the 2018 winner of the OpenStreetMap's Greatness in Mapping Award. Her tremendous contribution has made Lesotho one of the most mapped countries in Africa. As a HOT voting member, Tshedy is active in the Strategic Working Group. With her background as Spatial Planner, Tshedy understands how useful data is for both development and humanitarian purposes and I believe would make a significant contribution to HOT if elected to the board.	OSM Diary Link
Celina Agaton	Heather Leson	Canada/Philippines	Celina has been a great advocate for open source and open data for years. Her community coordination and ability to work with communities of all types makes her a strong candidate. Celina has been involved with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap community since 2008 when she helped provide Ushahidi with their first grant. Since then she continues to lead projects to help integrate OSM into core planning for the public and private sector. In the Philippines, she is shaping resilience models with OpenStreetMap for better prioritization, coordination and monitoring across the sectors for safer infrastructure construction and inclusive development. To date, workshops and events have trained over 600 people from aged 6 years to 60 plus on OSM. Her current projects bring the sectors together for rural agriculture infrastructure, food security, conflict, heritage protection, gender gap mapping and traceability across the Mindanao region.	Blog Link
Ben Abelshausen	Pete Masters	Belgium/UK	I would like to submit my candidacy for the board. As a member of HOT I find it difficult nowadays to find useful ways to contribute and a position on the board is a perfect fit. I have a long experience in the wider OSM community, first organizing meetups then starting OpenStreetMap Belgium and organizing State of the Map in 2016. I have met many many OSM community and HOT members in many countries over the years and have seen HOT evolving into what it is today. Most of what I currently do I do with the missing maps community in London. My previous experience that is relevant to a board position includes managing a startup in the OSM space and being involved in OSM for over 10 years. I was/am also a board member in other organizations, Open Knowledge Belgium/OpenStreetMap Belgium, where we have seen an amazing community grow over the years. My day job keeps me strongly connected to and well informed on the global OSM community. My main interests in HOT are the HOT community & members and governance. I would like to help with thinking about the future of the membership and community involvement in the HOT organization. I think I can offer a fresh and independent perspective to the board on many issues because I bring in other experiences.	OSM diary link
Miriam González	Nathalie SIDIBE	Mexico	I would like to run for the HOTOSM Board because I believe i have a lot to contribute with my experience to the different mapping projects. One of my focus will be the membership and community. Also one of my main concerns is after a mapping is done how to communicate better to different organizations and Governments how to take advantages of all that data created. I believe we need to build stronger Humanitarian Open Data best practices that we can share to the public. I have participated in HOTOSM for 5 years organizing mapathing and creating links with different organizations. I was also a volunteer in the Malaria elimination project in Guatemala in 2018. I am part of Geochicas initiative in the one last year we had a microgrant to support a Post earthquake mapping project in Southern Mexico. Thanks Nathalie for the nomination and thanks to all the people who contacted me to suggest me to be part of the board elections.	OSM diary link

Member questions for board nominees

Member name	Question
Matt Gibb	What do you see as the biggest challenge that HOT as an organization needs to overcome over the next year? ...and as a follow up: What actions can HOT take to meet these challenges?
Rebecca Firth	As others have mentioned, the HOT Voting Member and Board model is something that is much-discussed. Adaptations have not recently been made to the model. What governance-related experience do you have that might aid this discussion?
Rebecca Firth	One reason the board exists is to fulfill a critical function of governance, fiscal and legal oversight, strategic guidance and risk management. What experience can you speak to, to help Voting Members understand how you might approach these challenges?

• See a form with all questions and the candidacies answers` here
• See notes of the Candidacy Hours that took place July 4th and 5th here

Previous Chairperson for the Voting Members

The previous Chairperson was Joseph Reeves. Membership Meeting Minutes can be reviewed Humanitarian_OSM_Team/Meetings#Meetings_of_the_Voting_Membership

Nominations for Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Chair

We elect one person for the Chair for the Voting Members. The nomination and the election of the Chair will follow the schedule of the Board as detailed above.

Candidate Name	Nominator / Supporter(s)	Candidate Nationality/Residence	Why are they an excellent choice?	Link to blog or OSM diary with candidate statement
Matthew Gibb (OSM: Giblet)	Dan Joseph (OSM: danbjoseph)	USA	Through my involvement with HOT over the last 5 years, I've become increasingly aware of how we as members can contribute to the organization beyond mapping. Being involved in the organization's working groups gives a new perspective in how HOT can grow in a positive direction. While working on HOT's strategic plan in 2018, it became clear that HOT membership involvement and activism is a high priority for the organization. Our Membership has grown to well over 100 members, all with unique perspectives and skillsets that HOT can benefit from. As Membership Chair, in addition to the necessary procedural duties, I would work to encourage more membership involvement to achieve our strategic goals and further the great work of the organization. A strong and active membership is necessary as HOT continues to grow. We have many great contributors in our working groups already, we need to continue this growth throughout the rest of the membership.

Past Elections

See the main page of HOT Board Elections for information on past elections.