Author: Melanie Eckle-Elze

  • Semester Start Missing Maps mapathon for World Malaria Day 2017

    Every year, 400 000 people – especially children- die of Malaria, an actually curable disease. The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is working with governments worldwide to prevent, heal and control malaria (http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org). Many regions of our world are not covered on a map. Maps are however an important tool for planning vaccination campaigns and…

  • Missing Maps talk at Impact Hub Bergen

    How can we combine technology and digitalisation with doing good? That is the main focus for the 2017 Impact Night series organized by and at the Impact Hub Bergen. Last evenings Impact Night was about Tech for Change and disaster response. Therefore the Impact Hub team invited Per Aarvik, President of the StandbyTaskForce, Sam Applebee,…

  • Missing Maps Mapathon at Makerspace (DAI) – OSM for Malaria Elimination

    Many regions of our world are not covered on a map. Maps are however an important tool for planning vaccination campaigns and for ensuring medical supplies. Places that are not covered in a map are in many cases nonexistent for authorities and other organizations. We want to change this situation – with your help- and…

  • GIScience / disastermappers heidelberg in “Jetzt” magazine of Süddeutsche Zeitung

    Last week we had a special guest for our New Years Mapathon: Nadja Schlüter, a journalist of the popular youth magazine “Jetzt” of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Nadja had heard about the Missing Maps related activities at our institute during an interview with MSF UK and visited us to learn more about our work and disaster…

  • GIScience Research Group support for Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team Fundraising Campaign

    One main focus of the GIScience Research Group is the research and education with respect to advancing methods, technologies and applications of Volunteered Geographic Information – in particular OpenStreetMap – for applications from logistics to humanitarian aid. In this vein, the group has been also been supporting the work of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap (HOT) team…

  • Christmas Mapping event in cooperation with GFZ to support earthquake management in Kyrgyzstan

    Dear Mapping Enthusiasts, in the upcoming week we want to invite you to our last Mapathon of the year 2016! When: 08.12.2016, 18:00 Where: Hörsaal, Berliner Straße 48 In this mapping event we will map buildings and other infrastructures in Karakol, the fourth largest city in Kyrgyzstan, which is located in a seismically active area…

  • OSM GeoWeek contributions from Heidelberg to support climate change preparedness programs

    In the context of the international OpenStreetMap Geography Awareness Week,  last Thursay, 17th November 2016, another mapping event was organized at the Geographical Institute of Heidelberg University. Sava, a region in the north of Madagascar, was herein mapped in cooperation with Missing Maps and the French NGO CartONG. Madagascar is as one of the poorest…

  • Integrating MapSwipe and HOT Tasking Manager

    The MapSwipe app allows you to mark buildings and roads on satellite imagery within just a few seconds by tapping on your smartphone. Thousands of volunteers contributed to MapSwipe so far and it is just incredible how big the areas are that have been scanned (also see : With one swipe or tap you put…

  • GIScience at CartONG GeOnG Conference 2016

    The last couple of days the pictuesque city of Chambery became a gathering place for humanitarian actors, researchers and organizations. CartONG organized their biannual GeOnG conference in their headquarter city. This years conference was at the same time the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the NGO. CartONG is a French non-governmental organization that fosters the…

  • HeKKsaGOn – GIScience takes part in the 5th Japanese-German University Presidents’ Conference

    Melanie Eckle and Benjamin Herfort represented the GIScience Research Group at the 5th Japanese-German University Presidents’ Conference that was held on 29th and 30th of September in Karlsruhe. The German-Japanese University Consortium HeKKSaGOn was founded in July 2010 as an association of three German (Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Göttingen) and three Japanese (Kyoto, Sendai, Osaka) universities. We…

  • Maptember in Brussels – GIScience Research Group at the HOT summit, SOTM 2016 and Missing Maps Meeting

    Brussels became the global center for OpenStreetMap enthusiasts, humanitarians and researchers during the last week. The 2nd HOT Summit was held on the 22nd September and was complemented by a Missing Maps Mapathon in the evening. From 23rd – 25th September the State of the Map conference opened their doors for the global OpenStreetMap community.…

  • Crowdsourced Classification of 3D Point Clouds

    Within the 3D-MAPP project we currently developed a workflow and a web based tool, that allow volunteers (and experts) to classiffy 3D point clouds in just a few seconds. The approach combines the point cloud interpretation skills of humans and the scalability of crowdsourcing. Furthermore, crowdsourced geographic information can be of high value to automated…