Pista ng Mapa

After the State of the Map Asia in 2016, the previous organizers from the Metro Manila map-py communities (mostly, local advocates from OpenStreetMap and FOSS4G) voiced a common wish in a post-event meet-up: organize a similar conference outside the capital region.

Every year since we would meet and bring the idea up, but never got around to finding the time and resources to do so. In January this year, I finally took the bull by its horns and started campaigning with a smaller group of advocates to "let's just do it" this year, as long as we find a venue, and everyone agreed to pay for their own expenses.

What started as a dreamy conversation between friends who committed to facilitating topics to fit a small, one-day conference back in January, has expanded to three days, with two workshop tracks, and more volunteers jumping in to lead or facilitate workshops and panels. Whew!

Presenting, the first Pista ng Mapa conference in Visayas:

The map-py users conference will happen on August 1-3 in Dumaguete, in Central Visayas, with Foundation University as our venue. For three, full days, we will be having panel discussions, workshops, hands-on and demonstration of various Open and Free software technologies, for users and enthusiast, to help grow local, open mapping communities in the region. Thanks to our generous sponsors - Kaart Group, Grab, and Mapillary -, the conference and workshops are open to the public, totally free of charge.

We can accommodate more people during the plenary talks and panel sessions, but our hands-on workshops are limited by the computer laboratory facilities.

Hurry, and reserve for your free slot from our event registration site!