Mapathon Keralam - Launching of crowd mapping process

In context of the Rebuild Kerala initiative post the devastating floods and landslides 2018, Government of Kerala had found it utmost necessary to have the up-to-date maps available in the public domain for reaching out to the needy and to manage supply of deliverables. In regard to this, Kerala Government had launched a participatory project known as ‘Mapathon Keralam’ which aims to create a detailed living map of Kerala. 

On 8 September 2021 FISAT signed an agreement with Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) for the Mapathon Kerala project. College was required to collect required data and map out Angamaly Municipality within the specified time period. The department of Civil Engineering was assigned this task and started work on 26 November 2021 with groups of students assigned to each ward that comes under the Angamaly municipality to cover.  

The students visited assigned ward location and marked its boundaries and also the important entities present in the ward such as schools, post office, PHC etc.The mapping process was done in a free and collaborative software tool called ‘OpenStreetMap’ which enabled the students to edit the map of the municipality and it provides with a high quality satellite imagery that helps to accelerate  the mapping process. All the necessary guidelines were met in regard to this. The whole project was completed in six working days and 30 ward boundaries were marked. The notable students who actively went for the on-site mapping for more than two days were Roshan Issac (S5 CE), Sinchan Dutta (S5 CE) & Shemin Majeed(S5 CE). The final project was handed over to KSITM. The students were awarded with a government certificate issued by the Kerala State IT Mission and so the project was finally concluded successfully. 

The project was lead by Ms. Neeraja Nair, Asst. Prof., Department of Civil Engg. I was lucky to be the student lead of the project!!

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Yadu Krishna S
S6 CEB