The second annual Overture Member Summit recently brought together more than a hundred people from 30 member organizations in Charleston for three days of collaboration and progress. The energy throughout the event was remarkable, with members engaged in early morning sessions to late-night discussions about everything from Brussels sprouts to map data. It’s this blending of personal connection and technical collaboration that makes our community special and effective.
The Vibe in Three Words
Collaborative. Candid. Momentum-building.
Experience the collaborative energy and key moments from our three days in Charleston. Watch the full highlight reel above.
The Journey from Building to Enabling
Launched in December 2022, Overture is still a very young project. As we build, the next steps change, and the organization needs to change to match those needs, and defining Overture’s next steps was a critical part of the Members Summit.
We kicked off the Summit by looking back at our accomplishments. Our central efforts have centered around our core mission: to develop open map data. Much of the initial focus was on putting together these global data sets, developing a schema, and developing the operational muscles to release them on a regular basis.
However, as we moved down that path, we began to develop new parts of the mission, from Developer Advocacy (providing tools to help developers use the data), to building pipelines (so we can scale), to improving data through the Places signal work to doing the in-depth work necessary to make GERS a reality. We have done this work methodically and systematically, one new thing building on what had been built before.
Product Vision
Albi Wiedersberg, Vice President of Product at Overture, highlighted how we’re moving from “building the best open map” to “enabling the best map.” This is a crucial distinction.
There’s no single “best map” for all use cases – what’s ideal for pedestrian navigation differs completely from what’s needed for real estate analytics or humanitarian response. Overture’s role is to provide:
- Reference Map – High-quality, consistent base layers that serve as a trusted foundation
- ID System (GERS) – A mechanism for connecting diverse datasets and enabling interoperability
- Extensions – A framework that allows specialized data to be built on top of our foundation
This approach leverages Overture’s unique position as a collaborative effort across the industry, while allowing individual members to build differentiated solutions that meet their specific needs.
Technical Vision
The summit showcased significant technical advancements across multiple areas:
Amy Rose, Chief Technilogy Officer at Overture, shared details about our technical vision, emphasizing how interoperability and scalability are guiding our infrastructure development. Through GERS, we’re creating a common language that allows different datasets to connect seamlessly, addressing one of the industry’s most persistent challenges.
This technical vision supports our broader strategy of enabling rather than simply building, ensuring that Overture remains flexible enough to support the diverse needs of our community.
Data Infrastructure and Quality
The migration of data pipelines from member companies to Overture infrastructure represents a major accomplishment that will ensure the sustainability of our project. These pipelines are the backbone of our data production process, and having them under Overture’s management ensures consistency, reliability, and scalability.
Eric Godwin, Principal Engineer at Overture Maps Foundation, presented the pipeline architecture for our data processing, showing how we’re standardizing approaches across themes while allowing for theme-specific customization. This architecture addresses challenges around data ingestion, validation, matching, merging, and release management, creating a cohesive system that can scale as we grow.
The comprehensive approach to data quality shared by Drishtie Patel, Product Manager at Overture, and the team illustrated how we’re systematically addressing this critical area. By categorizing quality issues by severity, implementing automated validation, and creating clear mitigation paths, we’re ensuring that our data meets the high standards required for production use.
The Developer Advocacy team shared their work making Overture data more accessible and usable. From the Explorer tool that visualizes our data to command-line utilities for downloading specific regions, these tools are essential for helping users understand and access what we’ve built.
Overture in Action
Seven member organizations presented their real-world implementations of Overture data, demonstrating impressive results across various industries and how Overture data is helping to solve real problems faster and more efficiently.
Participating companies included Microsoft, Esri, TomTom, Precisely, Tripadvisor, and HOTOSM, spanning use cases from global basemaps to humanitarian response. Stay tuned as we’ll be sharing these implementation stories in more detail soon!
What tied these stories together?
- Less plumbing, more product – Teams stop reinventing ETL and focus on the features their users see
- Speed-to-production – What previously took months now happens in days
- Lower barrier, wider reach – From Fortune-100s to small NGOs, a single open foundation levels the playing field
The Best of Overture Awards
During closing ceremonies, we presented the first-ever “Best of Overture (Capybara) Awards” to recognize outstanding contributors. Named after Overture’s new unofficial mascot, the Capybara, which was chosen for its collaborative nature, recipients include:
Jake Wasserman was recognized as the Overture MVP for his consistent contributions and helpful explanations.- Cozmin Bantea, Jennings Anderson, Seth Fitzsimmons, Pascal Clarysse, and Vic Schappert were named the “Gandalfs of Overture” for their deep institutional knowledge and ability to recall past decisions.
- Ryan Lopez and Matt Travis received recognition as Overture hype. machines for their enthusiastic promotion of our work
- Bogdana Veselinovic and Steve Moore were honored as Ti-GERS heroes for their significant technical contributions.
- Jens Goossens was recognized as a Wiki wizard for improving our shared knowledge base
These recognitions, while lighthearted, highlighted the diverse ways members contribute to Overture’s success and the importance of collaboration across companies.
Thank you!
As we reflect on our three days together in Charleston, we’re struck by both how far we’ve come as a community and the exciting journey still ahead. What makes us most optimistic isn’t just the technical progress, though that’s been remarkable, but the collaborative spirit we witnessed throughout the Summit.
We truly believe we’re building something transformative here. Not just another map dataset, but a new paradigm for how spatial data works. One that’s more open, more connected, and more valuable for everyone who uses it. It won’t be easy, but as we’ve seen this week, we have the team, the vision, and the momentum to make it happen.
Thank you to everyone who made the trip to Charleston, who shared their expertise and insights, and who continues to believe in what we’re building together. We look forward to seeing the progress we’ll make in the coming year, and to gathering again in 2026 to celebrate our next chapter.
Get Involved
Start using Overture data – check out the Explorer tool, a no-code option for inspecting Overture data and metadata, the data guides for an overview of our six data themes, and the “Getting Data” section of our documentation.
The future of mapping is open, collaborative, and built together. Join us in making it happen. Visit our website to learn more about our work and become a member.
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