YouthMappers
YouthMappers is an international consortium of university-level student mapping clubs, with local chapters in universities of various countries.
- Official website: youthmappers.org, Blog, Projects
Mission and Vision
Mission
YouthMappers is an international network of university-student-led chapters. We organize, collaborate, and implement mapping activities that respond to actual development needs around the globe - creating and using geospatial data and information that is made publicly available through open platforms. We share experiences and results while learning, leading, and making a difference in the world.
Vision
Cultivate a generation of young people to develop leadership ability and create resilient communities around the world. To empower youth to define and change their world by mapping it.
YouthMappers Programming
Students and their faculty advisors, in any country, are invited to join YouthMappers, an international university consortium on mapping for resilience. YouthMappers aspires to be the "community within the community" for the academic sector to find resources for participating in open mapping initiatives for humanitarian and development purposes. YouthMappers offers leadership and research fellowship opportunities, focused activities for female mappers, and local capacity building support for students and their faculty advisors to work within their communities to make a difference, together.
- Let Girls Map: Launched in 2016, Let Girls Map is a YouthMappers campaign that encourages female mappers to participate in mapping activities and motivates YouthMappers chapters to create more inclusive mapping communities beyond their university campuses. The campaign supports projects and mapping efforts in support of women and girls issues and places special emphasis on International Women’s Day, March 8, and International Day of the Girl, October 11. YouthMappers contribute features and attributes under the hashtag #letgirlsmap in an effort to create a more equitable map.
- YouthMappers Research Fellowship: The YouthMappers Research Fellowship is a 9-month program designed to enlist, enable and showcase the contributions of open geospatial data for research on resilience of vulnerable populations around the world. Selected fellow and mentor teams attend the Research Methodology Symposia where they take part in customized technical training sessions, engage in scientific discussions and successful data and analysis practices. The purpose of the symposia is to enhance the quality of the proposed research and communication of results. This fellowship opportunity is offered bi-annually.
- YouthMappers Leadership Fellowship: The YouthMappers Leadership Fellowship is a training workshop in open mapping techniques and youth leadership during a capacity-training workshop to help students enrich their home chapter activities. As a cohort, they develop and refine innovative ideas or activities that promote youth leadership on their university campuses and disseminate these resources through the YouthMapper Resource Library . This fellowship opportunity is offered bi-annually.
- YouthMappers Regional Ambassadors: YouthMappers Regional Ambassadors provide local support to chapters through in-person, technical training to ensure data quality in OSM data creation. They contribute directly to the growth of the network by recruiting highly motivated students to organize, create, and formally establish university-based YouthMappers chapters around the world. The 2019-2020 cohort of 14 ambassadors represent 11 countries.
YouthMappers Mapping Activities
YouthMappers contribute to mapping tasks organized by partner institutions and organizations by adding attributes and features to OSM primarily using the #youthmappers hashtag. To ensure quality edits, the YouthMappers validation team can help validate YouthMappers work.
The below table is a list of activities for the entire YouthMappers network. Typically mapping activities are conducted on a chapter by chapter basis.
| Task | Purpose | Details | Tools | Start Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mapping Buildings and Road Features in Kati Cercle, Mali | This project aims to add roads and buildings in parts of the Kati Cercle, Mali to assist a project related to understanding small shareholder farmers needs. | Project will be kicked off with a training for YouthMappers members on January, 22, 2021 | Standard TM Project | 01/22/2021 |
Sponsors
Founding partners are Texas Tech University (TTU), The George Washington University (GWU), and West Virginia University (WVU). Arizona State University (ASU) serves as the lead fiscal administrative partner for the university consortium on behalf of YouthMappers.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) generously supports this program through a grant from the USAID GeoCenter. The grant is administered by Arizona State University (ASU) in collaboration with GWU and WVU.
YouthMappers has a number of MOUs expressing collaboration with other actors in this space, which encourages and defines joint action or access to resources, internships, or other benefits for students and faculty from partners.
Chapter Websites
- YouthMappers at Eastern University, Bangladesh
Contacts
- E-mail: info
youthmappers
org - Facebook:
youthmappers - Twitter:
@youthmappers - Twitter: @letgirlsmap
- Instagram:
youthmappers - Instagram: letgirlsmap
- LinkedIn:
youthmappers