Talk:Microgrants/Microgrants 2020/Proposal/Unique Mappers Capacity Building Support For COVID19 Response & Community Empowerment

Thoughts

• The organisation Unique Mappers exists and does actively organise mapping events around OSM; as such, they are definitely the right kind of applicant. I don't know them, but perhaps someone independent who has dealt with them can endorse them here.
• I don't really buy the argument that there is much need for drone photography. Perhaps the applicant could provide more detail on problem areas. We have provided good aerial photography from OSM already. The pics of Port Harcourt on Bing and ESRI are clear, superb resolution. Mapbox is horrible, as always, and Maxar 1 and 2 are both a bit low rez. I could easily map Port Harcourt at a building by building level from those pics. Even very dense areas like Rumu-Epeni are clear and have already been accurately building-digitised. There is an offset problem between image series, but we know how to deal with that. Some smartphone GPS traces would help to remedy the offset. Spot checks in more rural areas also show good traceable images.
• The hardware requested is great. It has an awesome 20Mp 1 inch (25.4mm) sensor. Good choice for top end professional work like mainstream Nollywood film production. Very expensive. Perhaps there are more economical alternative drones. Like the Mavic mini, which is also great quality (12Mp)at 20% of the capital cost. I'd like to know what is the planned control and use of the drones in the following two years as well - I'd expect the drone/s to last about 3 years before failure. I'd like to know what top end drone rental by the hour or day costs in Nigeria. Will our drones be rented out commercially to movie producers, documentary makers etc?
• The proposal is somewhat contradictory. To want a Zoom subscription, plus to get airtime for participants doesn't make sense. If participants are struggling for airtime, extensive Zoom video meetings are an odd approach. I'm not clear why they need Zoom to that extent. Are there alternatives? OSMF uses Big Blue Button. WhatsApp will do video conferences of up to 5 participants, etc.
• The OSM user identities quoted in the package of endorsements, with one exception, are not in the list of 500 recently active Nigerian mappers. Nor is the applicant an identifiable currently active mapper. The exception is KingVik, who is an infrequent but active contributor at position 487 of 500. This may be due to typos in the user names, or simply (Occams Razor) to them not being active.
• The budget adds up to 5410.04 Euro. Not that eerily precise 5000.00 Euro. But there were some layout problems with the budget as originally posted which I tried to correct by rebuilding the HTML table. The applicant needs to check the budget. Plus I'd expect them to lose 2% to 3% on bank charges and currency conversion.

>>> Craig.za (talk) 23:13, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Why drones?

Why drones are supposed to be used instead of standard and likely to be far more efficient methods like GPS tracks and aerial images? What will happen with drones after this proposal ends? Is "hire drones" a typo? Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 23:31, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Blank

410.04 euro spending has a blank explanation in a table Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 23:31, 16 May 2020 (UTC)