On July 25th the first ever worldwide openstreetmap Mapathon focussed on Lesotho was held in seven venues across the world. These included Maefeng and Qacha’s Nek (Lesotho), Swords (Ireland), Katowice(Poland), Muenster(Germany), Ottowa(Canada) and North Carolina(USA). Different numbers of mappers gathered in the name of    #MapLesotho and the spirit of #HOTOSM.  The largest number of these were in Swords which had 24, while other venues typically had 5-10. In total 126 Mappers joined the tasks that day.

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#MapLesotho was a success in that numerous mappers who participated that day were not present at any Mapathon. This was also a first for Fingal County Council as this was the first crowdsource that had been called, albeit focussed on a partner country. Fingal County Council has stated that it will use the learning from this project to consider the potential of crowsourcing as a way of supporting its information needs.

The outcome of the Mapathon was the creation of a smaller number of mappers who visited the #MapLesotho tasks with regularity in the following days and ‘mopped up’ the inevitable half-completed tiles. This smaller number are what made the enormity of the #MapLesotho tasks gradually reduce over the following weeks.