Many social projects have a need for maps and geo-data that can be expensive to fulfill. OpenStreetMap provides an unrestricted and free alternative to commercial maps.

OpenStreetMap is a wiki-like project aimed squarely at creating and providing free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them. The project was started because most maps you think of as free actually have legal or technical restrictions on their use, holding back people from using them in creative, productive or unexpected ways.

Openstreetmap enables social change by providing the tools and the geodata to enable other community projects, whether they are international, such as disaster relief, or regional or local initiatives, to create maps of any type to help achieve their goals.

Our current objective is to accelerate the take-up of OpenStreetMap in North America and to build a sustainable community of volunteer contributors that can care for and augment the map data.

WHAT WE NEED:

We need financial support, donated hardware and volunteers to:

• Increase computing and storage infrastructure
• Develop TIGER/Line data import software
• Develop a vibrant community of contributors to augment and refine the newly imported data

Financial support from NetSquared will bring OpenStreetMap to the next level in North America so it can benefit communities and facilitate social change here in the same way it has in Europe.