GIScience News Blog

  • Introducing OhsomeNowStats

    Introducing OhsomeNowStats

    OhsomeNowStats allows users to take a look at the mapping activity in OpenStreetMap. This is especially useful for humanitarian organizations and mapathon organizers, because OhsomeNowStats data is updated every 5-10 minutes. Using this tool, user-engagement can be tracked in near real time and used to motivate participants and volunteers alike! By selecting a time range,…

  • IT Systems Engineer (m/f/d, up to 100%)

    Are you passionate about automation, monitoring and the development of innovative IT infrastructures? Are you an enthusiast for open source software? And would you like to work with developers and researchers to further develop software in the field of geoinformatics from an operational perspective? We need your expertise to professionalize and fortify our IT services…

  • Looking back at SOTM Africa and Missing Maps Gathering

    Looking back at SOTM Africa and Missing Maps Gathering

    The recently concluded State of the Map Africa 2023, hosted in Yaoundé, Cameroon, marked the fourth edition of this regional OpenStreetMap (OSM) conference. The State of the Map was a great opportunity to get to know the people who are at the center of building open mapping communities in African countries. For the first time…

  • The Year 2023 at HeiGIT

    The Year 2023 at HeiGIT

    As 2023 is coming to an end, we would like to take the opportunity to look back at this eventful year and appreciate the advance that HeiGIT has made towards its goal of enabling and improving the transfer of knowledge and technology. Thanks to the collective efforts of each team member and the GIScience community,…

  • HeiGIT-Team Wins “Open Source Software for Sustainable Development Goals (OSS4SDG)” Hackathon

    HeiGIT-Team Wins “Open Source Software for Sustainable Development Goals (OSS4SDG)” Hackathon

    The HeiGIT team recently secured the top position in the third edition of the Open Source Software for Sustainable Development Goals (OSS4SDG) hackathon. These hackathons are based on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN. The participants were tasked to take on one of seven challenges, each with the goal to develop and…

  • Analysis of Humanitarian OSM Stats: User activity through HOT-TM and contributing organizations

    Analysis of Humanitarian OSM Stats: User activity through HOT-TM and contributing organizations

    Introduction In this blogpost we are taking a look at humanitarian mapping through the Tasking Manager (HOT-TM) that is operated by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT). At HeiGIT we work together with HOT to provide analyses and statistics to further understand mapping activity. Explore the user and mapping stats of all Tasking Manager activites here. Check our blog posts about topics…

  • New paper on the potential of simulated laser scanning and field data to train forest biomass models

    New paper on the potential of simulated laser scanning and field data to train forest biomass models

    In great collaboration with colleagues from Karlsruhe (DE), Vienna (AT), Brno (CZ), Leipzig (DE), Raszyn (PL), and Berlin (DE), we published a paper investigating approaches to improve LiDAR-based biomass models when only limited sample plots with field data are available. The main work was carried out by PhD student Jannika Schäfer (IFGG, Karlsruhe Institute of…

  • DFG Software Grant

    DFG Software Grant

    Successful proposal: Fostering a community-driven and sustainable HELIOS++ scientific software The 3DGeo Group and the Scientific Software Center (SSC) of Heidelberg University have been successful with their proposal in the DFG call “Research Software – Quality assured and re-usable”, together with two other project proposals at Heidelberg University (see press release). The main objective of…

  • HeiGIT at State of the Map Europe 2023

    HeiGIT at State of the Map Europe 2023

    This year’s State of the Map Europe Conference (SotM EU) took place in Antwerp, Belgium. HeiGIT’s Benjamin Herfort and Jochen Stier visited the conference. SotM is a platform hosting OSM mappers, open-source developers, researchers, GIS professionals, cartographs and many more interested people. The goal is to offer an opportunity for those groups and individuals to…

  • Open Source Routing and Optimization at the Global Health Supply Chain Summit 2023

    Open Source Routing and Optimization at the Global Health Supply Chain Summit 2023

    HeiGIT Product Manager for Smart Mobility Julian Psotta attended this year’s Global Health Supply Chain Summit in Nairobi, Kenya. The main goal of the GHSCS 2023 was to learn and share experiences from people directly working on issues related to this year’s theme: “Sustainable and Resilient Supply Chains for Equitable Access to Healthcare”. From November…

  • Vortragsreihe der Heidelberger Geographischen Gesellschaft

    Ob bei Shakespeare, Dick oder Scholl-Latour: Schockierende Ereignisse und Entwicklungen wirken sich stets auch räumlich aus. Für das Wintersemester 2023/2024 hat die Heidelberger Geographische Gesellschaft (HGG) führende Vertreter:innen gewonnen, die zu drängenden Gegenwartsfragen forschen und im Anschluss an ihre Vorträge gerne mit dem Publikum diskutieren. Aus globaler und/oder regionaler Sicht wird zu folgenden Themen referiert:…

  • GeoSocial 2023

    On the 13th of November, the 1st ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Geocomputational Analysis of Socio-Economic Data (GeoSocial 2023 in short) took place in Hamburg, Germany. Organized in part by Prof. Dr. Alexander Zipf, the CEO of HeiGIT and the Chair of GIScience at Heidelberg University, the workshop was dedicated to bridging the gap between…

3D 3DGEO Big Spatial Data CAP4Access Citizen Science Climate Change Conference crisis mapping Crowdsourcing data quality deep learning disaster DisasterMapping GIScience heigit HELIOS HOT humanitarian humanitarian mapping Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team intrinsic quality analysis landuse laser scanning Lidar machine-learning Mapathon MapSwipe Missing Maps MissingMaps ohsome ohsome example Open data openrouteservice OpenStreetMap OSM OSM History Analytics Public Health quality analysis remote sensing routing social media spatial analysis Teaching VGI Workshop