Open source communities like OpenStreetMap, OSGeo, Youthmappers and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap always prioritize underrepresented groups and promotes inclusive collaboration for everyone. Yet women's participation remains low, often below 10% in major ecosystems (and even lower in some geospatial mapping projects historically). Still, this focus on inclusion has empowered active women to contribute, make a difference and get support and praise in the community.
In this lightning talk, I share my own 4 year journey as a woman from Nepal, starting from hesitant first steps to creating real, lasting impact. I began exploring beginner-friendly contributions in geospatial open source projects (like OSM mapping and QGIS-related tools). Over time, my contributions expanded to roles that amplified community strength: advocating for open source applications in Nepal's context, organizing and contributing to events like OSM Hackfest, the Climate Change Fellowship, and Open Source Map Design Competitions. These efforts have helped build Nepal's open geospatial community, empowered youth and other women to join, and created tangible local impacts.
This talk celebrates how women volunteers like us strengthen and diversify open source geospatial ecosystems, especially in underrepresented regions from novice starter to member and Ambassador of various open source communities.