This year's global OpenStreetMap convention will be in Birmingham, UK

OpenStreetMap's annual international conference is returning to the UK, the first time it has come to the UK since the very first State of the Map in 2007.

State of the Map is the global gathering for everyone contributes to and/or uses OpenStreetMap. We will assemble to celebrate the scale of the changes and achievements so far. There will be keynotes and a breakout stream of presentations and workshops examining current practice, organisation and relationships; and preparing for the changes we can expect in coming years. In fact, so much has happened and is happening to OpenStreetMap that the theme of this year's conference is "Change".

The world is going mobile. In a mobile world people need to know where they are; how to get places; where to buy your goods or services; how to find their friends.

You need to know where your customers are: to deliver context-sensitive messages to them and to ensure that they can find you.

What connects all these issues and provides you with business-differentiating opportunity?

A MAP. And not just any old map. People expect personalised maps centred on them; tuned to their specific interests which can change depending on which role they’re fulfilling, for example a bike map for cyclists; a piste map for skiers; maps showing cash machines - anything at all for which there’s a market - it’s all in the data.The world is a dynamic place and people will expect your map-based service to be instantaneously up-to-date. 

Tough standards to live up to. Tough to do without OpenStreetMap.

Are your web sites and mobile apps using “me-too” maps that look like everyone else’s, fighting for attention with all the other businesses and features on the map, out-of-date for months at a time, inaccurate and with no way of correcting them quickly? 

You should be investigating how to use the best, freshest, richest set of freely available map data that covers the globe. 

We give you map data, not a map: you can make it look like anything you want and you can display any data you want on it. You can access updates daily, hourly, even every minute if you want.Most commercial providers just do streets. 

OpenStreetMap might have “street” in the name, but we do much more. Natural features, bus routes, footpaths and cycleways, administrative boundaries, shops, rivers and canals… you name it, somebody is busy mapping it

In 2011 an academic study from the University of Heidelberg and the University of Florida, found that OSM provides 27 percent more data in Germany with regard to the total street network and route information for pedestrians than TomTom’s commercial dataset.

You’re limited with what you can do with our data only by your imagination, technical skills and budget. And your budget gets a head start because our data is FREE, now and forever.

Book your place now at this years OpenStreetMap Conference. 

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