Hi! I’m Ovi.
I started my journey into maps when smartphones and mapping systems were in their inception, in 2006. Back then everyone had its own map and tried to build various products on top, especially navigation. Google Maps was in its infancy. Fast forward a decade, and I was back into maps and open street map community while working with Mapillary. Once I started to get closer to the mapping community and open source projects, I understood how powerful this can be, if both converge and work towards the greater good.
Last year, one of the most passionate GIS people I know(Christopher Beddow) told me about MapLibre, how great the project is and that I should join it, if possible. At that point, I realized how much I missed maps and working with a great open source community. I decided to give it a try and have a call with Oliver, to find out if and how I can help. After a few great discussions, with the community members, here I am, working together with Bart to maintain the native repository and try to move it forward as much as we can.
I truly believe in open source and the power of the community in building great products; products built by the people for the people with no strings attached. MapLibre is one of these products that we see getting more adoption each day. And this is an exciting time to contribute and help out moving the project in the direction shaped by the community.
It is great to be here. I can’t wait to see MapLibre grow and get more adoption, becoming the de facto digital map solution.