Mapping a response: using satellite images to aid humanitarian action

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), established in 2010, is a non-profit organisation that creates and provides maps to support humanitarian organisations in their response to conflict or natural disasters. They do this through collecting data, coordinating the design and development of OpenStreetMap (OSM) tools and documentation, teaching data quality assurance and collaborating with data imagery providers.

This case study is one of 15 undertaken by ALNAP in partnership with Elrha’s Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF), exploring the dynamics of successful innovation processes in humanitarian action. The case studies examine what good practice in humanitarian innovation looks like, what approaches and tools organisations have used to innovate in the humanitarian system, what the barriers to innovation are for individual organisations, and how they can be overcome. The case studies are synthesised in the summary report, ‘More than just luck: Innovations in humanitarian action‘.