Earlier this month the first day of OpenStreetMap’s 2012 international conference was dedicated entirely disaster response and crisis mapping, a topic that hit close to home for the host country Japan.

It was a productive conversation that we’re looking forward to continuing at the International Conference of Crisis Mappers (ICCM) coming to Washington, DC, on October 12. ICCM brings together practitioners working in humanitarian technology and mapping and on the ground for disaster response. We’ll be attending to discuss and train people on making maps and using mobile and web applications for delivering data in times of crisis.

Specifically, we’re looking forward to continuing the conversation around using OpenStreetMap, mapping in no- and low-bandwidth environments, and how successful data sharing for crisis response can work. We’ll be presenting on the following:

• 12 months Later: Stories from Mapping the Horn 2011 and Sahel 2011: There are real information challenges in a food crisis around gathering and sharing data across organizations working to respond to the same crisis. This is a look back at decentralized data sharing attempts from our work with World Food Programe and USAID in the Horn of Africa in early fall 2011 and recent work with GFDRR at the World Bank this winter in the Sahel. Expect a blunt take on what worked, what we would do differently, and a lot of hot maps.

• Offline Mapping in no- and low-bandwidth environments: Complete control of offline mapping can take data into the field like never before. The MapBox platform and the MapBox iOS SDK provide custom open source tools to mapping in no- and low-bandwidth environments. We’ll showcase the latest developments in providing an open source mapping toolbox for both mobile and web applications. In addition, we’ll demo the latest applications that have been developed for 100% offline mapping on mobile devices.

Registration is still open, but just until October 1. Jue, DJ, and I will be there looking to connect with everyone in town. With the growth of OpenStreetMap in the year of the open map, we’re excited to be able to join the discussion amongst humanitarians and technologists working around the world.