It was an honor to share the stage with Pauline Okeyo (Esri), Charles Mwangi (Kenya Space Agency), Stephane Vouillamoz (Novel-T) at Geopalooza in Nairobi to discuss how open-source is transforming the geospatial landscape.
One interesting thing about my fellow panelists is that all of them come from organizations that use ODK. Here's why that's good and bad and what we need to do to get more good and less bad.
It's good that open source has democratized access to geospatial software, reduced duplication of effort, and accelerated innovation.
It's bad that the burden for providing open-source software is unfairly distributed because so many benefit but don't give back.
If we want to see an acceleration of impact, we need to change the culture around open source to ensure projects have enough resources to continue. Fortunately, the answer is pretty simple.
If you make open-source software, give beneficiaries the option to pay. And if you benefit from open-source software, pay the people who make it.
If you missed the panel, you can watch it below. It was a great conversation!
Thanks to Declan Ottaro (Ushahidi) for moderating and to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and DevGlobal for bringing so many amazing people together.