The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is opening board elections, and I am delighted to be invited by Miriam Gonzales a.k.a. Mapanauta, Nathalie Sidibe (both current board members) and Enock Seth Nyamador to run for it.

I am a long-time member of HOT, which I joined in 2013 when I was conducting mapping projects during my residency in Nicaragua. Since then I have supported HOT in many ways, from managing the website in the early days to working later as a project manager on the initial machine learning initiatives and leading the technical team to implement version 4 of Tasking Manager. Today I work as a Geospatial Data Systems Architect at the German Research Centre for Geosciences.

I know HOT well and from all sides: as community and project partner with OSM Nicaragua, as active volunteer, as supporting member and as key person in the technical staff. And I am confident that I have the deeper insights to contribute to HOT in an inclusive and constructive way.

Looking to the future in particular, I want to support HOT to build meaningful, people-centered growth with global communities and, most importantly, to promote local empowerment of practitioners and mappers.

Since its inception, our organization has transformed from a very active membership to a primarily employee-driven innovation. I would like to revitalize the purpose and activating factor for the membership and combine powers. I would actively promote a healthy relationship with our parent project OpenStreetMap and embrace an Open Data and Free Culture spirit on all levels of HOT.

As we grow in the organization over the next few years, we must also demand, formalize and sustain the accountability of HOT staff to the board and membership, in order to jointly support and shape the path we are taking.

Thank you for considering voting for me and what I stand for. Please take a look at the other candidates and their statements.