FOSS4G 2023

IDeAMapSudan is a 2.5-year project finishing in March 2023. The project aims to develop a community-led geospatial database for mapping deprived urban areas (e.g., informal settlements) that will support the decision-making process for displacement and socio-economic reconstruction in Khartoum, Sudan. To that end, nine trainers from different governmental and non-governmental organizations were selected to be trained by a team of international experts from the Faculty ITC of the University of Twente, The Netherlands; the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium; and from the African Population and Health Research Center Kenya. These nine trainers were taught the essential competencies in using Free, and Open Source Geospatial Software to produce, compile, curate and distribute spatial data. Once the training of the nine trainers was completed, a series of community workshops were organized so that the trainers could train local community actors in tasks related to spatial data curation in close relation to their communities. The datasets produced from this process were then used to create a deprivation model and additional open data sets that can be used to help local communities and actors to take actions to mitigate several types of deprivations:
Unplanned urbanization - e.g. small, high-density, disorganized buildings
Social risk - e.g. no social safety net, crime
Environmental risk - e.g. flood zone, slopes
Lack of facilities - e.g. schools, health facilities
Lack of infrastructure - e.g. roads, bus service
Contamination - e.g. open sewer, trash piles
Land use/rights - e.g. non-residential zoning

This talk will describe three significant aspects of the project: the curriculum of competencies and the software tools used to teach these competencies; the phases and challenges of assembling a team and infusing it with a sense of community and participation; and the importance of disseminating results and evaluate the social impact open source software and open data can have.