This year, we will be having the Pista ng Mapa on November 21-23. This iteration of the conference holds special significance as it coincides with the 10th anniversary of the devastating Super Typhoon Yolanda (more commonly known internationally as Haiyan) which resulted in the loss of thousands of lives and caused millions of damage to properties. At that time, open mapping and open geospatial tools played a crucial role in facilitating rescue/relief operations and since then, open geospatial and FOSS4G applications have become more commonly used in disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) as well as climate action activities.
This year’s Pista is an opportunity for the local and regional communities to come together, share, and explore the importance of open geospatial data and tools especially in the context of disasters and climate change. As part of this commemoration, we are holding the Pista in one of the cities most affected by ST Haiyan back in 2013—the beautiful city of Tacloban.
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Pista ng Mapa (Festival of Maps) is the pioneer and premier free (as to cost and as in freedom) and open conference in the Philippines made for and by people who have a passion for open mapping, open data, and open source. It is an outreach activity to generate public interest, advocate and advance the use of open (geo) data, promote free and open source software for geospatial (FOSS4G), and support local open mapping communities around the Philippines.
Since the first Pista in 2019, it has brought together countless participants from different backgrounds to celebrate open source, open data, and open geospatial and have inspired new members to join, help, or start their own communities.
It is an event run wholly by volunteers and advocates from the local OpenStreetMap, OSGeo/FOSS4G, and other map-py communities. OpenStreetMap, OSGeo/FOSS4G, and other map-py communities.
