Map Maker mapping workshop and competition

On May 21 and 22, 2011, we hosted a series of Google Map Maker events in Rabat, Morocco. The events included presentations at the g|Maghreb developer days, and a mapping workshop which took place at the nearby Fondation Mohamed VI. The same evening, we launched a one-week online mapping competition (read on for the results!).

This year’s mapping workshop in Rabat built on the success of a similar event, which took place last year in Casablanca. It was organized by Amine, Mounir and Zohir, official Map Maker advocates from Morocco, in partnership with Evans and Jannine, Googlers working in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.



The objective of the event was to introduce Map Maker to new users and illustrate that many Moroccans all over the world are helping to improve Google Maps through Google Map Maker. The audience was comprised of over 130 attendees - mostly students, young professionals and developers. They learned how anyone can use Google Map Maker to add to and update maps in over 180 countries and regions. The result is more comprehensive and accurate local maps for millions of people to see in Google Maps and Google Earth. These amazing time-lapse videos of Rabat, Casablanca and Fes show the impressive progress of mappers in Morocco.

The day kicked off with an introduction from Evans. He welcomed the audience and introduced our official advocates, who then took the stage. They engaged the audience with powerful stories of how they got involved with Map Maker and became top mappers. Their passion and enthusiasm was clearly infectious. They also led a demonstration with the audience participating actively, asking and answering questions. We also recognized major contributions made by some of the power mappers in the audience by honoring them on stage.

“I was astonished to discover that my city is not mapped. There was only its name, so I felt a little bit sad and excited at the same time, because I will get the chance to contribute in making my city known around the world.” - Siham K.

Before ending the day, we announced a one-week online competition open exclusively to attendees of the mapping workshop. It concluded just a couple of days ago with impressive results. We are thrilled to announce the winners -- congratulations to Jalal L. in first place, Ilyasse M. in second place, and Mohammed Y. in third place!

It is not too late to register for and participate in another online Map Maker competition focused on mapping Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria (click here for more information and to register).



Congratulations again to our winners! Thanks again to everyone involved in this event -- please stay tuned for more about Map Maker and future mapping workshops in the region. You can view more photos here and find more information at mappingmorocco.com or on Twitter.



We invite you to join a local Map Your World community forum and start mapping at google.com/mapmaker. Happy Mapping!

Posted by Jannine Versi, Product Marketing Manager

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Post-tornado mapping in Google Maps and Earth

(Cross-posted from the Google LatLong Blog)

This past week, several devastating tornadoes struck across a wide swathe of the southern United States. Our Crisis Response team is activating to provide data and imagery we hope will be useful to first responders and the general public.

In cooperation with our satellite partner GeoEye, we have imagery of the aftermath of several tornadoes, including in Tuscaloosa, Alabama as shown below. We have created several before-and-after comparisons in a Picasa album.

Left: Google imagery from late 2010. Right: GeoEye imagery from Thursday, April 28.
Top: Charleston Square Apartments, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Bottom: Towns of Pleasant Grove, Concord, and Hueytown, Jefferson County, Alabama. Click to see enlarged.

This imagery, as well as data sets such as Red Cross shelter locations and tornado touchdown reports, are available in this collection on Google Maps. We will continue to add imagery and data as it comes available.

Our heart goes out to everyone affected by this tragic event.

Posted by Jesse Friedman, Google Crisis Response team

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Using the power of mapping to support South Sudan

(Cross-posted from The Official Google Blog)

Last Thursday, the Google Map Maker team, along with the World Bank and UNITAR/UNOSAT, held a unique event at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and a satellite event in Nairobi at the same time. More than 70 members of the Sudanese diaspora, along with regional experts from the World Bank, Sudan Institute, Voices for Sudan, The Enough Project and other organizations gathered together to map what is expected to become the world’s newest country later this year: the Republic of South Sudan. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the international community “to assist all Sudanese towards greater stability and development” during and beyond this period of transition.

South Sudan is a large but under-mapped region, and there are very few high-quality maps that display essential features like roads, hospitals and schools. Up-to-date maps are particularly important to humanitarian aid groups, as they help responders target their efforts and mobilize their resources of equipment, personnel and supplies. More generally, maps are an important foundation for the development of the infrastructure and economy of the country and region.

The Map Maker community—a wide-ranging group of volunteers that help build more comprehensive maps of the world using our online mapping tool, Google Map Maker—has been contributing to the mapping effort for Sudan since the referendum on January 9. To aid their work, we’ve published updated satellite imagery of the region, covering 125,000 square kilometers and 40 percent of the U.N.’s priority areas, to Google Earth and Maps.

The goal of last week’s event was to engage and train members of the Sudanese diaspora in the United States, and others who have lived and worked in the region, to use Google Map Maker so they could contribute their local knowledge of the region to the ongoing mapping effort, particularly in the area of social infrastructure. Our hope is that this event and others like it will help build a self-sufficient mapping community that will contribute their local expertise and remain engaged in Sudan over time.

We were inspired by the group’s enthusiasm. One attendee told us: “I used to live in this small village that before today did not exist on any maps that I know of...a place unknown to the world. Now I can show to my kids, my friends, my community, where I used to live and better tell the story of my people.”

The group worked together to make several hundred edits to the map of Sudan in four hours. As those edits are approved, they’ll appear live in Google Maps, available for all the world to see. But this wasn’t just a one-day undertaking—attendees will now return to their home communities armed with new tools and ready to teach their friends and family how to join the effort. We look forward to seeing the Southern Sudanese mapping community grow and flourish.

Posted by France Lamy, Program Manager, Google.org

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