User:Severin.menard
About me
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I have university degrees in Geography, History, GIS and Prehistory/Archaeology. I worked eight years as a GIS and Cartography expert for French local authorities before becoming a freelancer, and then from early 2010 a humanitarian, working on the same fields. Before Covid-19, I used to live between Brazil, France and Africa.
My user page is here, my diary there and my profile as contributor there.
My Backgrounds
From my first professional experience, I had the opportunity to work as a lead on census operations and census data, ordering orthophotos, running call for bids for electing webmapping application, designing a sub-cadastre scale urban landuse, geocoding at buidling scal, chasing and georeferencing old aerial pictures, etc. I also learnt how the geographic information is processed and handle by governmental and authorities, and I could measure the constraints and limits of non open data, limiting the possibilities of analysis and data cross-cuts.
I always studied at the same time: made researches about geography of car construction, learnt remote sensing during a year and also started a complete course of prehistory, thus participated to excavations or field analysis in Syria, France and Greece. Even there, my focus is not only based on the technical analysis of archaeological remains (stone tools, pottery sherds...), but also on spatial and statistical analysis.
My first experiences as a humanitarian
I decided to live in Brazil since 2008 and I then became a GIS freelancer. I entered the humanitarian world when the Earthquake hit Haiti in January 12, 2010 where some people I knew were involved. I joined the OSM contributors who created the base map of the affected areas that would be used then by all the responders. At the same time, I applied to the GIS positions that were needed on the field, and I have been chosen to work in the OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) Information Management Unit between February and April. I had the opportunity to be there when the people of what would become HOT arrived in the country and tried to facilitate their advocacy the best I could. I worked after for PAHO (Pan-American Health Organization) in Haiti, WHO (World Health Organization) in Pakistan during the massive floods that occurred from mid-2010.
My former involvement in HOT
If I did my best during these field experiences that have expanded my capacities, I also felt frustrated somehow, regarding the limits the mapping objectives of these agencies may have, as well as few local capacity building. This is why I have been glad to have the opportunity to be contacted by HOT (that had become a US incorporated NGO meanhile) in order to ensure a field mission for the Haitian mappers working for IOM (International Organization of Migrations), both to supervise their collection of useful open, humanitarian data and raise their skills, that really stand for me two major lines to massively support. Since I have been keeping on working within the HOT Project until now as a volunteer, as a project manager on many projects and context and also as a Board member (2014-2016). I quited HOT US inc in May 2016 due to a total disagreement with both the ethics, governance and strategy adopted by the majority of the board of the organization over the past three years.
My involvement in OpenStreetMap since 2014
I pursued my professional activities through an initially informal working group that chose to be called Les Libres Géographes and became an association based in France in the spring of 2017. Through this collective, during voluntary or paid activities, I have worked to promote and disseminate the OpenStreetMap project, both in its technical and governance dimensions, in many developing countries in the French-speaking world, with the aim of creating autonomous OSM collectives, both locally and in a French-speaking dimension beyond the borders. I co-founded the association Projet Espace OSM Francophone, which aims to support these collectives through voluntary actions. I currently work in the Crowdsourcing Team of the Unite Maps Initiative. I have sought to share these experiences during SotM World, Africa and France. In addition, I take pleasure in mapping almost every day in OSM.