State of the Map/Planning/Vision

Key aims

• Bring together the OpenStreetMap community (see "Conference Attendance")
• Keep costs low for attendees (supported by sponsorships)
• Run a scholarship programme (enabling people to attend who otherwise couldn't)

Further detail

State of the Map aims to be a general, multi-disciplinary conference. We strive to bring together a balanced attendance representing the many groups within OpenStreetMap. We also wish to maintain a balance of themes. To ensure this we regularly collect this information (e.g. as part of our call for proposals, and in our feedback survey).

Conference attendance

Diagram of the three attendance groups.

We strive to attract a people and organisations from all groups. They may cross groups, and may be on a range of professional/paid to hobbyist/volunteer. In no particular order:

1. Data Contributors
   • community
   • public administration
   • companies
   • NGOs / aid organisations
2. Data Users
   • commercial
   • non-profit and public service
   • research/scientific
   • personal
3. Core OSM
   • software developers who work on our shared tools
   • documenters/teachers
   • the OSMF working groups
   • OSMF board (strategy and vision)

Conference themes

We have identified the following themes (topics) and we aim for SotM to include a balanced mix of them.

• Cartography / visualization
• Data collection / creation
• Data use / analysis
• Education / documentation
• Humanitarian
• Intro to OSM
• Local community / diversity
• Organization / legal
• Technical / IT operations
• Transport / planning
• Other