Last week Porifrio and myself, as members of the OpenStreetMap Nicaragua community, traveled to Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas, the capital of the Autonomous Region of the Northern Caribbean Coast. The trip was made possible with the support by UNICEF Nicaragua, which we highly appreciate. We were for four days in Bilwi to present the OpenStreetMap Nicaragua initiative and build alliances with interested groups and institutions.

Besides smaller presentations and meetings, we had three very successful workshops with around hundred attendees. Most people were coming from the two local universities (URACCAN and BICU), the local Free Software Community, Bilwi and a social and ecological start-up called KAIKS. All together we mapped extensively Bilwi within only a few days:

This is a great example of the power of community and open technologies when they become available to everybody. And this is just the beginning. Having geographic data available empowers the people then to improve their lives, visualize and perceive their environment in a more constructive and creative way. The very motivated Free Software Community in Bilwi immediately organized an follow-up event.

• More photos can be found on Flickr
• Make sure to check out the crowdsourced street view
• You can find a Spanish version of this report on the community blog.