UN Maps is a mapping initiative that aims to assist UN peacekeeping missions in their field endeavors, such as peace and security, navigation and logistics, by providing its peacekeepers with topographic maps that will help them in their tactical and operational activities.
UN Mappers is a community of passionate digital volunteers supporting UN field operations by editing OpenStreetMap or providing open geospatial data. The community is composed of more than 4000 contributors including UN personnel on the field (GIS and Information Management working groups and uniformed personnel), academia (high schools and universities), local communities and remote volunteers from all over the world. UN Mappers have been giving support to crises such as the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria, development projects such as educational planning in Madagascar and innovative applications such as Virtual Reality. Everybody can be a UN Mapper, and you can stay updated on the community activities by following UN Mappers' social media or visiting mappers.un.org
Michael Montani is a GIS Consultant at the United Nations Global Service Center (UNGSC) and coordinator of the crowdsourcing activities for UN Maps. Formerly he has been YouthMappers Research Fellow and co-founder of the first European chapter of the network, PoliMappers. Over the years, he trained hundreds of contributors including UN personnel, academia and local communities worldwide on Volunteered Geographic Information and open-source GIS. He holds an MS in Geoinformatics Engineering at Politecnico di Milano.