Thank you, Joost!

After many years of dedicated service, Joost Schouppe is stepping down from the board of OSM Belgium. While he will continue to be an active mapper and an important part of our community, this feels like the right moment to reflect on everything he has helped build.

Joost has been a mapper for more than thirteen years, contributing over 1.4 million map changes across more than 100 countries, spread over more than 3000 mapping days. These numbers are remarkable, but they capture only a fraction of his impact. Above all, Joost is a community builder.

Help us map where it counts

With OpenStreetMap data becoming ever more relevant, more and more external parties want topics of interest to them to be mapped in great detail. Do you want to help on topics that we care most about? Have a look at the top mapping tasks list on the wiki!

Let us just highlight two organizations we are working with. First, Fietsberaad Vlaanderen is integrating their Velopark project with OpenStreetMap. A tool was developed to easily link OSM bicycle parkings to the official data in Velopark. This will in turn make it easier to fully integrate OSM data in their tool. As a little incentive for your contributions, you can apply for volunteer fees if you contribute to the project. More details via the forum.

Lili-app mapathon: 29/11 - Bruges

OpenStreetMap Belgium is organizing a mapathon in Bruges as part of our participation in the AMAI “Lili-app project”. The Lili-app will help visually impaired people find and follow the best route using their smartphone. The app will take into account infrastructure such as sidewalks and pedestrian crossings and special facilities such as tactile paving and traffic lights with sound signals.

OpenStreetMap Belgium general status

Hey, remember we have a newsletter? You can still subscribe here. Maybe it’s taken so long to send a new edition because we’ve been doing so many other things.

For example, during 2023, OSM.be was reborn as its own independent NGO! Our umbrella organization Open Knowledge Belgium went through hard times, and is now refocusing on its core projects. We’re glad to have been part of that community, and even happier that we now have everything under the control of the OpenStreetMap community.

OpenStreetMap Belgium basemap is up to date again

The OpenStreetMap Belgium base maps have been updated! OpenStreetMap Belgium has been offering free OpenStreetMap background maps for almost 7 years now. But what are these backgrounds? Well, we turn the huge and complex OpenStreetMap data into simple images or “tiles”, that can be used in any website or app.

Why are we doing this? Well, we saw that many websites use the default tiles from the openstreetmap.org website. However, this server is not meant to be used in production in live projects. To make it easier to switch to OpenStreetMap, you may use our tile server for your projects. And it does get used: many municipal websites use our tiles, as do other websites such as local tourist offices. The background maps are available for free, subject to reasonable use (see https://github.com/osmbe/openstreetmap-carto-be/wiki/Tile-Usage-Policy).

Mapper of the Month: dentonny (Belgium)

His homepage and his contribution page.

Hello Bob. Would you like to briefly introduce yourself to our readers?

First of all, thank you for the honour of contacting me as Mapper of the Month. My real name is Bob but I map under the pseudonym ‘dentonny’. I am 41 years old and live in Geel, in Belgium. Although I don’t consider myself an athlete, I try to be sporty as much as possible.

European camera grant project

OpenStreetMap Belgium & Mapillary are teaming up to improve the availability of street-level imagery available in the European Union! To help do so, we will be distributing a number of GoPro Max 360° cameras and associated gear to volunteers all over Europe. The 360° imagery we will generate will help improve Mapillary coverage as well as provide street level imagery for the OpenStreetMap community to use to further improve their map data.

Mapper of the Month: Lorenzo Stucchi (Italy)

His homepage and his contribution page.

Hello! Would you like to briefly introduce yourself to our readers?

Hi, I am Lorenzo Stucchi, on OpenStreetMap as LorenzoStucchi.

I am a PhD student in Environmental Engineering at Politecnico di Milano in Italy. I am also, since 2021, the national coordinator of volunteers for OpenStreetMap for Wikimedia Italia¹, the Italian local chapter of the OpenStreetMap Foundation. I am also part of the officiers of PoliMappers².

Annual report 2022

Financial report

Financial report for the year 2022. TLDR: we doubled our capital from 5.700 EUR to 11.600 EUR.

Projects

Traffic Sign Project: growing into a proper project

The Traffic Sign Project turned into something more structural, with its own project page and periodic updates.

Our new Corporate Member TomTom offered to give technical support on our projects. One of their engineers rewrote the program so it can run on Github Actions (serverless, weekly update) and can talk to MapRoulette automatically. The automatic updates are not implemented yet though.

Mapper of the Month: Joost Schouppe (Belgium)

His homepage and his contribution page.

Hello Joost! Eight years ago, your interview appeared in our Mapper of the Month column. But perhaps it is necessary for you to introduce yourself once again to our new readers.

Hi Pierre, thanks for having me again :)

I’m a mapper and community organizer. I helped start the Belgian chapter and community. I’ve been on the Board of OpenStreetMap Belgium from the start. I’m still a little involved in the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF)and I was on the OSMF Board for two years.