Ms Gertrude Namitala is a GIS expert, ICT4D consultant and a recognised open data advocate. She is the cofounder of OSM Zambia. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from Amity University, India (2013). She holds various IT and GIS certifications. 

She is the co-founder of OpenStreetMap Zambia, an NGO that advocates for open map data and aims at mapping Zambia. She is a board member of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, an international team dedicated to humanitarian action and community development through open mapping for disaster preps redness, mitigation and response and economic development. As a board member for HOT, Gertrude has brought in strategic ideas that are being implemented in the communities across the world. She is one of the leaders of OSM Africa, a body responsible to promote mapping of the African continent and bringing together all African countries to contribute to OpenStreetMap. In OSM Africa, she leads the activation working group that is responsible for leading activations in any African country when disaster happens. 

She is the managing director of Trudigital Technologies LTD , a technology solutions company that has worked in different sectors in Africa to solve solutions that improve service delivery. She has conducted several feasibility studies on how to use and implement ICT tools in their operations for government, private and non-government entities. She has developed and designed ICT tools both as an individual consultant and through Trudigital Technologies Ltd. 

She is passionate about developing women leaders and creating opportunities for women to be empowered. She is very known in the open data community for advocating for diversity and inclusion of women in the open geospatial, open data and open source world. In 2006 she organised a mapping event to commemorate women and in 2017 she advocated for women to start mapping features that affect them. She wrote an article that is motivating girls and women to map around the world. She has a mentorship program part of the ICT4D conference where she mentors’ girls in the ICT field. She had a talk show on CBS and Beat FM in Uganda sponsored by Plan International where she hosted a show educating children on how they were required to behave from 2007 to 2009.

In the 12 years of her professional career, Gertrude has worked with government, private and non-government organizations. She is working with almost the OSM African countries some of which are Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia to name but a few. Gertrude has set up different cloud platforms for different organizations.