Dear HOT members

Thank you for taking the time to read my candidate statement. I’d like to take this opportunity to outline my previous involvement with HOT (and the broader mapping community), experience to date and outline particular areas of interest which I believe may be beneficial to the broader community.

But first, I’d like to thank Melanie Eckle for the kind nomination and her guidance in the run up to making the decision to run for the Board. I’d also like to thank the others from the community who’ve fielded questions and offered support as I’ve explored putting myself forward

Why HOT

I firmly believe in the power of people and technology to drive positive social change. As such, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to spend several years working around the world on various ‘Tech for Good’/ ICT4D projects, alongside good people doing incredible things. However, there have been frustrations. Too many times I’ve seen organisations inform rather than involve communities in the solutions, resulting in poor solutions - most worrying is that (with good intentions) they often implement solutions which were deemed ‘good enough’ for the community where it was implemented, but wouldn’t be upto the standards the implementers demand themselves. I’ve also seen communities disempowered more broadly through the type of engagement and solutions escalate into costly projects which need to be maintained.

As such, when I came across HOT (via Missing Maps) I was genuinely inspired by the following:

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