State of the Map SouthEastern Europe
State of the Map SouthEastern Europe 2019
| Location: | Prizren |
| Year: | 2019 |
| Dates: | October 25-27 |
State of the Map Southeastern Europe 2019 was a regional conference centered on free and open geospatial data, featuring the keynote "Maps Tell Stories: Saving the World with Free Software and Data" by Erle Schuyler. The conference demonstrated that the foundation of free data and software is the community that forms around it, bringing together international and regional speakers over three days to showcase how collaborative mapping initiatives address real-world challenges across Southeastern Europe. Day one featured technical workshops on OpenStreetMap tools like the iD editor and hands-on data work, alongside presentations on urban planning, municipal geospatial applications in Tirana, humanitarian mapping, and crowdsourced navigation maps. Day two began with three talks promoting the power of community by Till Adams, Guillaume Rischard, and Jonathan Belien. Day three included a keynote by Vasile Craciunescu on the Romanian geospatial community emphasizing knowledge-sharing, followed by presentations on integrating machine learning into OpenStreetMap, open-source navigation apps like CityZenApp, geodata management practices, and innovative crowdsourcing projects including OpenLitterMap for environmental monitoring. Throughout the conference, speakers underscored that mapping rules and communities differ across the world, advocating for localized approaches to collaborative mapping while sharing lessons applicable to broader geospatial initiatives globally.