WhereCampAfrica was attended by over 40 people with many more visiting throughout the day. Software developers from Appfrica Labs, the Development Seed, Grameen App Labs and DM Solutions mixed with students, GIS professionals, and government agencies.
Everyone was entertained by some lively debate with the Google Map Maker team over licensing rules of Map Maker data in Africa after Robert Soden from the Development Seed officially launched their new “Map Box” S3 based tile server. There was an impressive presentation of uses and architecture of the Open Data Kit which led to a lot of follow up discussion around mobile data collection interoperability. Finally, the local team from Mount Batton demonstrated a completely Open Source, virutalized instance of Open Street Map and GeoServer that is completely local to Uganda.
Break out sessions focused on Open Street Map, open source GIS desktops including QGIS and gvSig and Mobile technology. Everything that was presented at WhereCampAfrica was based on open source technology (with the exception of Google Map Maker). This was very different than other workshops presented at the conference based on the Google, ESRI and several other vendors. I’m a fan of the application of mapping and spatial technology to solve problems regardless open or proprietary. But given that local developers in Africa focus on Django, Python, Java, Drupal and Linux, and not a single participant at WhereCamp used .net (or even had an ESRI installation) confirms that there needs to be an Open Source tract at the next AfricaGIS.
After the break-out sessions several members of the group met for beers and eventually dinner on the shores of Lake Victoria outside Kampala. We we’re able to brainstorm a project with broad applicability that could be done on a shoe-string budget (similar to MapKibera.org which was dreamed up during the last WhereCamp). Stay tuned for the prospectus for that project. Looking forward to seeing everyone in Bamako in April for WhereCamp-WestAfrica! Stay tuned for pictures from WhereCamp
An extra special thanks to Google for both sponsoring the event as well as answering some very direct questions about Map Maker licensing. It was great to have everyone in the room.
