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Community and Governance
Community is key to the success of the Hivemapper Network.
Billions of people may rely on the map infrastructure and data generated by the Hivemapper Network. These outputs should be public goods, owned and operated by its contributors. Although decentralized, an organized body with a clear mandate is required to govern and facilitate the network operations. By transferring many of the key governance responsibilities to a foundation and making the technology open source, the Hivemapper Network can serve far more people across the globe and endure for a long time.
The Hivemapper Foundation is a Cayman Foundation Company Limited by Guarantee formed in 2022 and based in the Cayman Islands. Over time, the foundation will take on many of the responsibilities currently held by Hivemapper Inc., such as maintaining the decentralized mapping network and underlying open mapping technologies. The Hivemapper Foundation will be responsible for the global proliferation of the Hivemapper Network and ongoing network tokenomics. No Hivemapper Inc. executives will hold positions in the Hivemapper Foundation.
Below is the anticipated structure and core responsibilities of the Hivemapper Foundation. Please contact [email protected] with questions.
Category | Description |
---|---|
Mission | To proliferate a fresh and global map as a public good. |
Structure | The foundation is a Cayman Foundation Company Limited by Guarantee. It will have three initial committees: Technical, Map Quality, and Economic. |
Responsibilities | (1) Support ongoing map collection, quality assurance, and annotation activities. (2) Establish a transparent process for making updates to the underlying protocol and formulas, as described below in the Map Improvement Proposals section. (3) Manage and maintain the open technologies supporting the Hivemapper Network. |
Partnerships | The foundation will work with hardware manufacturers to create compatible Open Dashcam devices and establish a certification process for adding new hardware devices to the network. |

Division of responsibilities between the Hivemapper Foundation and Hivemapper Inc.
The Hivemapper Network will use a mechanism of governance called Map Improvement Proposals (also known as MIPs). Similar to the idea of BIPs from the Bitcoin community, MIPs will be used to introduce and approve or deny major changes to the Hivemapper Network. Changes introduced through MIPs may pertain to the network structure, governance, or tokenomics of HONEY.
The MIP process will be formally announced at a later date. In the meantime, it’s best to propose and vet ideas with the Hivemapper community via Discord. This is a good way to see if there is initial support for the idea or if it’s been discussed before.
The Official Hivemapper Community on Discord is the primary communication channel for our community of contributors. The Discord is moderated by both Hivemapper Inc. staff and community moderators.
The Discord community is a place where you can connect with other contributors in real time, ask questions, and get the latest updates about the Hivemapper Network. Discord is also the best way to get support for any issues you may face while contributing.
We recommend that every Hivemapper contributor or prospective contributor join the community. When joining, please read the
#rules-guidelines
and faq-suggestions
channels for more information on how to ask questions and get involved.