State of the Map Asia 2019: My First International Conference
I had been following SotM since 2017. Being involved in OSM through the medium of YouthMappers and Kathmandu Living Labs(KLL), I was extremely interested to attend the 2019 conference as soon as I heard about it. The conference being held at Bangladesh was another attraction. I had heard a lot about the dazzling streets, yummy food and amazing people of Bangladesh yet had not got the chance to witness it myself.
The journey of SotM started luckily with being awarded a scholarship covering all my expenses. Excitedly, I researched more about Bangladesh to aid my 5-days stay of learning and experiencing.
I, along with my three colleagues from Kathmandu Living Labs traveled to Dhaka, Bangladesh on the 31st of October. I was excited and looking forward to meeting people from all over the world working on OpenStreetMap (OSM) and its vicinity. I met my fellow scholars from India and Japan in the hotel where I had this opportunity to learn about them and status of OSM mapping in their respective countries. On the first day, I was enormously excited to see many renowned experts working on the OSM domain.
The conference started with the opening ceremony and welcome speech from the organizers followed by keynote speech from David Garcia . Also talks from Dr. Nama Raj Budhathoki and Taichi Furuhashi were interesting. The ambience of the hall was energized with all the mapping enthusiasts .
Photo Source: SotM Asia 2019 Organizers
There were many interesting sessions over the course of the two days. I had two presentations where I talked about my YouthMappers chapter Geomatics Engineering Students’ Association of Nepal (GESAN) and my Digital Internship and Leadership Program (DIAL) experience. I also got an opportunity to share panel with fellow mappers from Bangladesh, Nepal, Philippines and Indonesia where we talked about our chapters, its activities, experiences with mapping, etc.
This conference was ample opportunity for me to expand my network with people from other countries and learn from them. The whole conference was quite an experience as it helped me to broaden my perspective on OSM . I was really inspired by young people who were an integral part of the organizing team.
Youthmappers Panel Discussion ( Source: SotM Asia 2019 organizers)
Bangladesh and SoTM Asia 2019 was a complete new experience for me. I found the people of Bangladesh very humble and hospitable. I met some amazing youngsters like Sawan Shariar, Shaikh Solaimon and others who have become my good friends after the conference. Last but not the least, I would like to extend my congratulations to the organizers for organizing such a great event.
See you again, Bangladesh!!!!
