KCL Humanitarian Mappers run regular mapathons where staff and students get together to improve maps for some of the world’s poorest or most remote places.

These maps can then be used by researchers and humanitarian agencies to help with preparedness and responding to crises and natural disasters.

Many of the world’s most vulnerable places are not currently well mapped –maps might be out of date,incomplete, or completely absent.

This is where mapathons come in – groups of people getting together to add details to online maps using satellite imagery. These events allow anybody to contribute to creating a richer representation of the world and putting vulnerable people on the map.

In past events KCL Humanitarian Mappers have mapped entire towns and regions, like adding more than 29,000 buildings to the map of Karonga, Malawi, and working with other organisations to map 99 per cent of the Malakal region, South Sudan.