Google's first Global Mapping Competition ran from December 15 - January 31, 2010 and the big moment has come: announcing the winner! The competition entrant who added the most universities, schools, hospitals, and medical clinics with high quality into Google Map Maker was (drumroll please...) Wayne Dell Manuel of the Philippines.

Already one of the top 10 all-time mappers, Wayne made hundreds of moderations and added more than 1500 qualifying map features (i.e. schools, universities, hospitals and medical clinics) during the course of the competition. Google Map Maker is available in more than 175 countries and allows users to become "citizen cartographers" by adding and editing map features.

Wayne Dell Manuel at the 2009 Map Maker user conference in Bangalore, India.


Wayne first found out about Map Maker right here on this blog, "which is also where I found out about the competition," said Wayne. "For the competition, I added mostly government schools in the biggest island of the Philippines: Luzon. Government schools in the country tend to be used as temporary evacuation centers

during times of calamity such as typhoons and earthquakes which are common to the Philippines. It would greatly help in disaster planning and management."


Wayne's dedication to mapping his homeland is motivated by helping others: "After the devastating typhoon Ketsana (local name Ondoy), a volunteer group used Google Maps to map distress calls, among other things, to facilitate rescue operations. I was so happy to see the roads that I've helped map were used to locate the houses." Map Maker maps display in Google Maps for more than 140 countries and territories, including the Philippines.


As of late last year, Wayne's mapping contributions in the Philippines are also available as part of the Map Maker download program. Non-profits, government agencies and individuals can use the mapping data in the Philippines and more than 60 other countries for research, humanitarian relief and other non-commercial uses.


For his remarkable mapping efforts, Wayne has won a $50,000 UNICEF donation to benefit projects empowering young people through technology in the Philippines. Wayne will get a VIP tour of the local projects in the Philippines that are benefiting from the $50,000 donation, and he will also attend the upcoming Supper Mapper 2010 conference at Google's office in Zurich, Switzerland.


Congratulations to Wayne for winning the grand prize -- the $50,000 donation to UNICEF will go to projects in the Philippines!


Posted by Jennifer Mazzon, Maps Community Organizer