The rush for Wallonia

There is a lot going on in Wallonia! Of course the community around Arlon has a lot of activities, but now we are building contacts with the geo devision at the Service Publique Wallonie (SPW) as well.

One of the tracks is related to buildings and addresses. A few years ago, Glenn Plas built a tool to help importing the buildings and addresses in Flanders. Over the last year, he also integrated Brussels’ and Wallonian data. For the occasion, we migrated the tool to https://buildings.osm.be/ and started centralizing the documentation on the wiki. Read the wiki before trying the tool though!

Mapper of the Month: Nicxon Piaso (Papua New Guinea)

His homepage and his contribution page.

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

I am a Land Surveyor by profession with a Degree in Surveying from Papua New Guinea University of Technology. I work as a Mine Surveyor and part of my role includes mapping using 3D software. I also have interest in open-source mapping whereby maps can be readily accessible by all.

Mapper of the Month: Gpoilvet (Belgium)

His homepage and his contribution page.

Hallo Gpoilvet. Would you like to briefly introduce yourself to our readers?

My name is Gpoilvet, I am 23 years old and live in Lokeren. My hobbies are drawing, cycling, history, landscape interpretation and OpenStreetMap. I’m now at the end of my Master study Geography-Geomatics at the UGent (Ghent University) in Belgium.

"Pin je Punt" project with Visit Flanders

Visit Flanders and the five touristic organisations of the Flemish provinces have been working together on open data for ten years. This includes the famous node networks for walking and cycling.

Open Belgium 2022

Every year, the open data / open source / open knowledge community of Belgium meet during the Open Belgium conference. There’s a lot of people we haven’t seen since 2019. This year on April 29th, Open Belgium will be a real life event again. We hope to see you in Ghent!

Mapper of the Month: Søren Johannessen (Denmark)

His homepage and his contribution page.

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

I am living about 50 km outside Copenhagen in Denmark. My educational background is in Library and Information Science. For living I am working as an GIS consultant, which sometimes also including OpenStreetMap data as solutions for my clients. As an good example ― for Ballerup Municipality ―, I have done some import OpenStreetMap data regarding bicycle network, max-speed-zones, artworks, E-charging-stations, etc. into their PostgreSQL/PostGIS database.

Mapper of the Month: Mustafa Kamil (Sudan)

His homepage and his contribution page.

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

My name is Mustafa Kamil. I am contributor to OpenStreetMap under the username mustafakamil. I live and work in the Saudi Arabia. But I am original from Sudan.

I am a big fan of open-source and and an avid user of open source.

Mapper of the Month: Koos Krijnders (The Netherlands)

His homepage and his contributor page.

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

I am Koos Krijnders, already a few years pensionado as far as the financial side is concerned, but far from pensionado when it comes to making maps. Long ago I graduated as a geographer from the University of Amsterdam and as a cartographer from the University of Utrecht. I worked for the municipality of Lelystad and then as an independent consultant for various government organisations, but also for the cartography department of the Royal Dutch Tourist Association ANWB. In that time (between 1985 and 1995), I was involved in the preparation and construction of the basic databases for addresses and buildings (the BAG) — a file constructed and maintained by the municipalities. This file is now included in OpenStreetMap. This means that the buildings that were already in it were removed in OpenStreetMap, to the chagrin of many who had put a lot of hours into this.

In 2016 I became involved with the Netherlands Red Cross to further develop Missing Maps. Missing Maps is part of the data team. With a few permanent staff and many interns and volunteers, we want to use information technology to speed up and improve the assistance provided. In my spare time, I prefer to do something that requires maps. Travelling through Europe by bike or backpack and tent. To and fro, preferably by train and certainly not by air. The highlight is the annual winter camp — walking with a bunch of friends in the last weekend of January, pitching a tent, making a campfire. Unfortunately, snow and ice are often missing.

Mapper of the Month: d1sr4n (Russia)

His homepage and his contribution page.

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

I am Daniel. OpenStreetMap mapper for 1339 days now. I’m twenty-something and I really like the winters.

Mapper of the Month: Dasrakel (Belgium)

His homepage and contributor page.

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

My name is Karel, online is Dasrakel. I live and map in Roeselare, Belgium. My first experience with cartography was using GIS and the Google Maps API on the internship of my education MCT. I work as a programmer / IT professional. OpenStreetMap is completely separate for me, it’s one of my hobbies.