The F1rst Cotabato MapUp

Cotabato City - About 35 volunteer mappers joined the F1rst Cotabato MapUp (Mapping for Business, Tourism & Disaster Preparedness) on Saturday, September 21, 2013. Ten members of the GBG General Santos MapUp Team travelled 200 kms to this city at dawn armed with the conviction to finally share their knowledge on Mapping to the very eager Cotabatenos.  A project which is more than a year-in-the-making through a long series of correspondence between GBG GenSan Manager +Avel Manansala and City Tourism staff Gurlie Forondoza, it finally came into fruition with the help of the local government of Cotabato City and the STI Cotabato College which provided the venue for this historical undertaking.

Participants included heads of the local government unit's planning & development, IT, public information, social welfare, health, tourism, and barangay affairs offices. There were also reps from the city's national government offices and from the Air Force, Police and military units. Cotabato-based members of the SoCCSkSarGen Blogggers also came Ian Villanueva along with them IT and online volunteers.

A full house mapping event. Attendees from different sectors in the governments and others from private company.

Speakers during the Cotabato MapUp thoroughly stitched all the information needed for the participants as Ariel introduce everyone to Google Map Maker followed by Alexis about on how to start using Map Maker, then How to Edit by Nanardxz and How to Review  by Rap respectively.

Working lunch/workshop for all the mappers as if they're glued on their seats and no holds bars on mapping all the places in Cotabato City

Cotabato City was a mapper's paradise since there were still so many places to map and edit and kudos to our speakers Ariel Lalisan, Alexis Chua, +rap gregorio and the nationwide Map Your Town Grand Champion - +Nanardxz Zee; and mentors Xyrilloid Landicho, +marz bendol, Jose Nelson Rillo and his beautiful wife +Rofil Mae Rillo, and of course, yours truly +Pages Flipper. They made the mapup session fun, exciting and easy for everyone.

Now, I'm pretty sure that aside from us who took part of this event and the Google team around the world, Dora is the happiest girl because she can now travel Cotabato and can easily locate places around the city using her map.