2019 USC GIS Day and Map-a-thon

Do you care about climate change? Do you want to make a difference? Do you want to help people affected by recent natural disasters, environmental impacts, and other humanitarian issues?Come to our humanitarian mapa-thon event – No GIS skills are required – and we will quickly train you to use Open Street Map to assist in humanitarian projects around the world. Last year’s event was one of the largest on Earth – we made over 10,000 edits to humanitarian projects in just three hours – but we can do better! The focus this year is on how climate change is impacting our lived environment. Join us to learn more about how you can make a difference through mapping!

When: Wednesday November 13th, 2019
Where: Ahmanson Lab, 3rd Floor of Leavey Library
Food will be provided!
Please RSVP!!!

Schedule

9:30-10:00 - Coffee/Donuts and registration.

10:00-10:05 - Opening Remarks with UCLA

10:05-11:00 - Lightening Talks - Speakers from USC and UCLA will get us started thinking about maps and GIS

11:00-11:00 - Missing Maps and OSM KICK OFF with UCLA's James Walker

11:00-11:20 - HOTOSM Training and choose tasks that will be mapped

11:30 - Mapathon begins! Live camera view into UCLA’s mapathoners and a shared Leaderboard to track mapping results.

More about our spatial thinkers

Anusha Goyal: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle (UCLA)
Kate Vavra-Musser on Exposure Pathways (USC)
Robert Cudd: The World as Will and Representation (UCLA)
Young-Kyung Kim on Shifting Resolutions (USC)
Seher Randhawa on Locating Impacts (USC) (left in photo)
Mariah Tso: Critical Perspectives on mapmaking and the power of disruptive relationality (UCLA)

Map-a-thon Toolkit

What to do before the Map-a-thon

OSM Videos on how to use the task manager.

The Leaderboard tracks how many buildings each campus has added throughout the mapathon.

What to expect once the Map-a-thon begins

We will be giving brief tutorials/workshops to get people up to speed and we will have volunteers on hand to get you started and answer questions. As we map we will have a leaderboard showing our progress against UCLA. In addition we will have a live feed so we can say hello and see how are counterparts are doing.

Previous Map-a-thons

October 14th, 2018 at Leavey Library

USC and UCLA collectively mapped just under 10,000 buildings! Congratulations to both sides! USC edged UCLA by 126 buildings mapped. An amazing effort all around and a huge thank you to everyone who came out and mapped with us yesterday.

Speakers and Topics from 2018

Francesca Albrezzi (UCLA) on sharing exhibition spaces through immersive technologies
Kevin Barrow (USC) on neighborhood data for social change.
Henry and Hunter (UCLA) on geographers meeting the library.
Kurt Daum (USC) on connecting with Skid Row
Maddie Yakal (UCLA) on rice, terraces, and drones
Matt Bui (USC) on rethinking environmental racism

USC Map-a-thon Team

Andy Rutkowski is the Visualization Librarian at USC Libraries. He is interested in how mapping and spatial thinking can have an impact on a wide range of issues, including social justice, sustainability, and public policy.
Abriannah Aiken is a 2nd year Architecture student minoring in Archaeology. She enjoys encouraging others to understand the complexities and injustices in the world and use privilege to create global impacts!
Mia Poyner is studying Health and Human Sciences with a focus in International Health. During her sophomore year, she took a class called Community Health Scan, where she and her classmates went into downtown Los Angeles and mapped out the various resources available to the homeless people living in Skid Row. This experience sparked her desire to examine the relationship between health and spatial patterns.
Past Organizers
Natalie Millstein is a senior Geodesign major with a minor in architecture. She enjoys investigating and evaluating ongoing change in the demographics and structures of urban environments.
Precious Nwaoha is a Cognitive Science student in her final year. She is passionate about using data, technology, and people power to positively impact the world.
Alex Chen is a senior studying GeoDesign and public health. He is interested in spatial analysis, disease surveillance, urban epidemiology, COER, and health policy, using GIS as an applied statistical method.
Christian Lanec Relleve is a student of the USC School of Architecture minoring in HSGI (Human Security and Global Intelligence). He is interested in understanding territorial studies, defense infrastructures and the utilization to solve complex contextual problems using architecture.
Additional thanks to students Rebekkah Castellanos, Karen Grewar, Gabriela Noriega, and Seung Won Ha. Thank you to the Spatial Sciences Institute. Thanks to Karen Howell and Rachelle Smith in Leavey Library. Extra special thanks to Curtis Fletcher and the Polymathic Lab for providing the space and food for the event. Big thanks to our friends at UCLA - Yoh Kawano, Zoe Borovsky, Albert Kochaphum, Dawn Childress, Anthony Caldwell, and James Walker. Lastly, big thank you to the Open Street Map Community and Missing Maps! And, of course, you!