Design and Policy Challenges to Mapping in the Developing World

Crowd-sourced mapping holds particular promise for areas of the world where governments and businesses either can’t or won’t produce detailed maps of cities, countries, and commerce. And yet looking at open-source maps for a variety of developing world countries illustrates that user-generated content for maps has yet to make headway. Blank landscapes are devoid of neighborhoods, streets, local businesses. The rich patchwork of city life becomes invisible, and thus inaccessible in some fundamental ways. While mobile phone adoption, Internet usage, and social media use generally grows – sometimes quite rapidly – users in these regions are still opting out of the task of mapping their lives and their landscapes. This talk will address the ecosystem of hardware and software (mobiles, towers, network protocols, etc.), usage patterns and design constraints, and government policy issues that impact the ability and desire of users in the developing world to contribute user-generated content that can help fill in otherwise blank maps.