Pista ng Mapa 2023

Overview

Pista ng Mapa 2023 was held from November 21-23, 2023 at Tacloban City, Philippines. It was the 5th iteration of the Pista ng Mapa conference and the third to be held on-site/face-to-face.

It was the first PnM to have a conference day (Day 3) reserved for community events—e.g. unconference, BoF & community meetups, cultural and field trip, etc.—and also the first to utilize a pretalx instance provided by OSGeo.

Day 1 (Conference Day) was held at the Summit Hotel in Tacloban City while Day 2 (Workshop Day) and Day 3 (Community Day) was hosted by the Universtity of the Philippines Tacloban College.

(see: Pista ng Mapa 2022 pretalx/website)

Attendance and Participants

Pista ng Mapa 2023 was attended by 150 local participants across the three conference days.

The conference has always advocated for diversity and inclusion. For Pista ng Mapa 2023, the percentage of conference participants were:

Pronouns	Percentage of participants
He/Him	43%
She/Her	52%
Rather not say/Did not answer	5%

Travel Grants

With the help of the joint conference's sponsors, 13 local travel grants were awarded.

Conference Program

See: PnM 2023 Conference Program

In total there were 39 presentations for Pista ng Mapa 2022 divided into:

Event	Number
Keynote	2
Talks	14
Workshops	8
Lightning talks	14
Sponsor talk	1

Conference Day

Day 1 of Pista ng Mapa 2023 was held at the Summit Hotel in Tacloban City.

The morning session consisted of the opening program with messages from the plenary speakers and conference sponsors.

The afternoon session was divided into three breakout rooms for Lightning Talks, General Track Talks, and Academic Track Talks.

Workshop Day

Day 2 of Pista ng Mapa 2023 was hosted by the University of the Philippines Tacloban College and consisted of 8 workshops around data collection, data management, developing geospatial applications, data storytelling and design thinking, and how women's perspectives impact cartography and spatial mapping.

Community Day

Day 3 of Pista ng Mapa 2023 was also hosted by the University of the Philippines Tacloban College and consisted of community events. This included meetups and discussions of local communities (OSM, YouthMappers, OSGeo) in the morning and a cultural field trip around Tacloban City and the province of Leyte in the afternoon.

Conference swags

Those who attended the joint conference got a free Pista ng Mapa 2023 swag bag (shirt, tote bag, stickers) and conference certificates.

Socials

There was a socials night on Day 2 where certificates of recognition were given to select chapters and individuals from different YouthMappers and OpenStreetMap communities.

Organizing Committee

Local Organizing Committee

• University of the Philippines Tacloban College
• University of the Philippines Tacloban College YouthMappers

Core Organizers

• Ben Hur
• Feye
• Leigh
• Mikko

Partners and Sponsor

As a not-for-profit, and volunteer-driven endeavor, Pista ng Mapa rely on hundreds of donated work hours that go into planning, organizing and running the conference. As a free-of-charge conference, organizers seek the support of organizations and donors to provide significant financial assistance to successfully host the event.

The generosity of our volunteer-advocates, and community supporters (individuals, corporations, NGOs) are crucial in helping us promote our goal of advancing the use of free software and open (geo)data, and grow local communities outside the capital region of the Philippines. Every donation matters and is deeply appreciated. Donors are acknowledged in several ways in the conference. Contributions at higher tiers are also entitled to additional privileges and expressions of appreciation.

Sponsors

Sponsors are those that provide financial or in-kind support for particular programs and events.

Our sponsors in each tier are listed alphabetically below.

PnM 2023 Sponsors

Tier	Name
Major	HOT Open Mapping Hub - Asia Pacific
Major	Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo)
Minor	University of the Philippines Tacloban College (UPTC)
Patron	TomTom
Patron	FPOSI

Strategic Partners

Organizations, businesses and individuals who have an idea for a unique partnership that is mutually beneficial and aids us in meeting our vision and outreach goals are strategic partners!

PnM2023 Strategic Partners

Partner	Name
Venue	University of the Philippines Tacloban College (UPTC)
Local volunteers	UPTC YouthMappers
Local support	BNHR
Local support	Province of Leyte, Philippines
Local support	Provincial Tourism Office (Leyte)