I am Stefan Karschti (@stefankarschti) and I’m honored to serve on the MapLibre Board.
I’ve worked in mapping for over a decade, starting at Skobbler where I co-architected core native components, the rendering engine, and an efficient vector tile format that powered rendering, routing, search, and guidance. I also have extensive experience in OSM map processing. After Skobbler’s acquisition by Telenav, I focused on automotive navigation, bringing OSM-based maps to embedded in-car systems.
In MapLibre Native, I have contributed:
- Renderer rearchitecture and Metal backend – implementation work as part of the Amazon-sponsored team, enabling native Metal rendering on Apple devices and improving performance.
- Font rendering – integrated Grab’s font rendering improvements and implemented font fallback (
font-faces) support in styles. - Various cross-platform fixes and code reviews.
Vision:
- Improve Native performance and reduce resource consumption to support a wider range of devices, including lower-end mobile phones.
- Expand platform reach and maintain GL JS ↔ Native feature parity.
- Enhance and strengthen global usability.
- Foster a welcoming, supportive environment for new contributors.
- Drive greater MapLibre adoption across industries and applications, including automotive and offline use cases.
Disclosure: Self-employed, contracting for Grab. MapLibre work has been volunteer-based except for Amazon- and Grab-sponsored contributions.