STDM (the Social Tenure Domain Model; https://stdm.gltn.net) ‘bridges the gap [of customary and informal tenure not being handled by conventional land administration systems] by providing a standard for representing ‘people – land’ relationships independent of the level of formality, legality and technical accuracy.’ It is compliant with the ISO LADM (Land Administration Domain Model) and is implemented as an information tool in the form of a QGIS plugin.

In this project, the STDM project steering committee needed assistance to bring the plugin to a point where it could be released on a public repository, to make progress with new features and bug fixes and also to train potential new developers.

To achieve the above objectives, STDM organised a ‘hackathon’ / code sprint in Nairobi and contracted Kartoza to conduct it. We consulted on publishing the plugin on a public repository, trained new developers in developing QGIS Python plugins in general and about the STDM plugin specifically and participated in the code sprint as a contributor.