We discussed the social challenges that are important for citizens in Peru and how maps will be part of the solution. Some of them are for people that have never visited archeological sites in their own country where a visual map can help them explore those “huacas” (local word for ruins), but also the local tourism boards can leverage this information in order for potential tourists to know the conditions of the environment around the towns or cities.

The potential to leverage geodata is an important factor for helping people in crisis situations, like we have seen in Ecuador this past weekend. Peru is also exposed to possible tsunamis and there are evacuations routes all over the city of Lima and other coastal towns. We saw that this information is not correctly place on the current maps and we will work closely with the community to have them mapped.

Parks like the Parque de La Reserva are beautiful places that locals and tourists can explore in Mapillary now, we got together with the OpenStreetMap community and the local GDG chapter to do a small photo walk around the district of Lince.

One of the most important conversations was around how to get some of the towns in the Andes mountains mapped and give them the tools to upload their traces since internet connections are rare in those parts of the country. Here we see some synergies with other OSM communities like the Cochabamba chapter that is exploring WiFi mesh networks to provide local maps to citizens.

Overall it was a great experience to know all of the Geogeeks in Lima and look forward to continue the conversations in the Mapillary forum.

I would like to thank Juan, Milton and Johnatan who helped me setup this Meetup, you guys rocked!

Happy Mapping!

/Claudio

Here is some of the result