Disasters are not often caused by things that can be seen with the naked eye. In December 2019, a strain of strange, pneumonia-like cases began infecting people in a city in China. Months later, the World Health Organization has declared this novel virus as the cause of a global health emergency which led to a years-long battle against the unseen foe. Travel restrictions and border controls were implemented and the world raced to track the movement and emergence of cases.

Within UP Mindanao's 200-hectare campus, research projects pursue ideas and methodologies targeting local community needs and issues. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science of the College of Science and Mathematics mobilized the students' interest to participate in research efforts and conducted data analytics to publicly-available COVID-19 disease data which led to the production of case visualizations in the form of maps. These were then published on various social media platforms which soon attracted the attention of several Local Government Units and government offices, most notably the Department of Health. This led to the formal collaboration between the academe and the government in the months that followed which, in turn, influenced several policies and the creation of research-based decision support systems.

And COVID-19 is not the only disease modelled by the department's multidisciplinary team. Rabies, an endemic disease that is still prevalent in the Philippines despite several interventions, have been carefully studied by UP Mindanao research staff since 2018. Several publications and public informational sessions has led to the development of an analytics dashboard that is currently deployed and used by personnel from the City Veterinarian's Office. One of the most useful tool in the dashboard? MAPS.

This talk will outline the disease mapping efforts of UP Mindanao researchers, specifically the ones that I was able to take part of starting when I was a student researcher until now, and present how these helped shape policies and intervention programs in the city of Davao.

As one of the deliverables of the She Leads and She Inspires project "Mapping for Cultural Sustainability", the organization of a local YouthMappers chapter in UP Mindanao signified the start of youth-led open mapping efforts in the Southeastern part of Mindanao. The university was chosen to host the rise of the first YouthMappers chapter in the Davao region in part due to the institution's reputation of being a center of development and innovation in the region. With its roster of highly capable and enthusiastic undergraduate and graduate students, the UP Mindanao YouthMappers* was born. The academic organization, with the mission of enhancing the skills of its members in the field of open mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or Geospatial Technology, is now slowly starting to carve its mark in the UP Mindanao community by introducing the value of open mapping through trainings and mapathons and opening doors for research collaborations through GIS workshops and consultations.

This talk will focus on introducing the UP Mindanao YouthMappers to the open mapping community of the Philippines as well as share its journey, the activities that have been conducted by its founding members and the organization's plans for the near future. This talk will also hopefully open opportunities for collaboration with other YouthMappers chapters and different OSM communities in the Philippines.

Disclaimer: Although the organization has already been acknowledged and recognized by the UP Mindanao Office of Student Affairs, as of October 15, 2023, it is still waiting for the official recognition from the YouthMappers network. Application and submission of complete requirements had already been processed in the month of September.