Happy new year to everybody and specially to all the acm members out there. Well as you may have already heard of the kick-off start we had this year. Well yes, we hosted Google's mapping party today (Saturday, January 2, 2010) from 1200 to 1830. It was an eventful day, let us not forget the last minute preparations and troubleshooting we have had regarding the internet availability. In the end, we received cheers and applause from everywhere. See, this is what we do out of our usual academic university life, and nuces-acm really tests your potential.

Google Inc. launched Map Maker, a tool that allows users to draw and edit maps on top of satellite imagery. It has received great uptake by users across the world, and most notably (and perhaps surprisingly for the rest of the world), Pakistan. In this sea of crowd-sourced-and-moderated map making, Lahore became the quickest-mapped city thanks to the collective efforts of Pakistani mappers around the world. Working on a very short deadline, the extremely driven ACM student members and I welcomed Google, along with almost a hundred notable participants to campus for  discussion and a workshop on the Map Maker tool itself. The new auditorium proved a great host for the meeting, where several presentations and discussions took  and perhaps most importantly- the road ahead for mapping and the public. Afterwards, participants moved to Lab 6 for a very interactive workshop, where they were taught how to map any regions they wanted by Faraz Ahmed and Omer Sheikh; two of the most experienced and recognized users of the tool. Badar Khushnood, Google's Pakistan representative, provided immense support with the organization and giveaways. In the end, this was the first organized mapping party Lahore has seen and the fruitful discussions and interactions on campus have ensured many more to come. Here's to putting the rest of Pakistan on the map!

Special regards to all the NUCES-ACM students members who managed to pipe WiFi into the auditorium at the last minute, even though we discovered later that the walls were built to be soundproof.

Google LatLong: Google Map Maker Ambassadors -- party on!
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/01/google-map-maker-ambassadors-party-on.html