New Blog for ICA Commission on Open Source Geospatial Technologies

Over the last six months we had lot of activities happening  for the ICA Commission on Open Source Geospatial Technologies, from new open geospatial research labs being established  to summer schools, conferences, workshops etc . So to keep  updates of these events, we have  setup this blog for the Commission at  https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/

Thanks to Felix Ortag ( Vienna University of Technology ) for his help in this. We have added this url to the Commission’s website (Thanks to Thierry Badard) as  I believe over time, this will be an excellent way to keep the news and events updated. If you wish to keep updated on the Commission’s activities, please subscribe to the blog.

Photo of the founding meeting of Open Source Geospatial Lab at University of Nottingham in June 2010

Professor Georg Gartner, President of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and Arnulf Christl, President of OSGeo shake hands after signing the Memorandum of Understanding between the two organizations.

We look forward to your strong support and participation for the Commission’s activities for the future

 

Third Open Source GIS Summer School, Girona, Spain

The GIS and Remote Sensing Centre (University of Girona, Spain), Nottingham Geospatial Institute (University of Nottingham, UK) and OpenGeo  are organising the Third Open Source GIS Summer School in July 9-13th 2012 at Girona, Spain. Building on the success of previous editions , this year’s program which will be focused on the development and creation of Open Web Mapping Services and Web applications.

We will be strongly supporting  this excellent initiative. The course has been designed and will be conducted on a GNU/Linux operating system based on the use of the OSGeo-Live DVD.

All course materials produced for the Summer School will be made available through the ELOGeo platform http://elogeo.nottingham.ac.uk/  for the benefit of the wider community. More details at http://www.sigte.udg.edu/summerschool2012/

We welcome participation from all for the Open Source GIS Summer School.

 

FOSS4G South East Asia – July 2012

Thanks to efforts of Dr Tuong Thuy Vu (Head of Open Source Geospatial Lab, Malaysia) , Prof. Dr. Franz-Josef Behr(Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences) and colleagues,  FOSS4G South East Asia – “Open Source Tools and Application in Southeast Asia”  http://foss4g-sea.org/    will be held in conjunction with AGSE 2012  on July 18-19th in Malaysia.

This will build more research collaborations  and start process to establish Open Geospatial Labs in other key universities in Malaysia and the region in the next 1-2 year time frame helping us build a strong network of research labs for scaling up research and teaching for the future.

We welcome participation from all for this initiative.

“Open Source GIS & WebCartography” Workshop materials available

The Commission organised a very successful workshop at AGILE 2012 in Avignon, France . Thanks to Barend Köbben and ITC for putting together the course materials (presentations, exercises, etc.) and  for making all  arrangements for making this a great success.

All the workshop materials from the Open Source GIS workshops at AGILE 2012 are now available at http://kartoweb.itc.nl/kobben/AGILE-OSGEO-workshop/  for the benefit of the wider community.

 

First Open Source Geospatial Laboratory in South America

In 2011, the International Cartographic Association (ICA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) with the aim to developing global collaboration opportunities for academia, industry and government organisations in the field of open source GIS software and data. The MoU aims to provide expertise and support for the establishment of Open Source Geospatial Laboratories and Research Centres across the world to support the development of open source geospatial software technologies, training and expertise.

We are now pleased to announce about the Open Source Geospatial Lab initiative in South America. After the successful establishment of Open Geospatial Labs in Europe, Asia and Africa , we are happy to have the first such initiative in South America being established at the Federal University of Parana in Brazil. Federal University of Paraná is regarded as the oldest Brazilian university. Details at http://www.ufpr.br/portalufpr/

The Open Geospatial Lab at Federal University of Paraná will be led by Prof. Silviana Comboin . Silviana has strong research background in Geospatial Science, SDI and GI standards. Previously she was working at the Brazilian National Mapping Agency before moving to Federal University of Paraná as a professor at the Geomatics Department. She also coordinate the Standards Workgroup of the Brazilian NSDI (INDE). She also have a strong team and action plan in place for building this initiative for Brazil and South America. The initial team of Open Geospatial Lab at UFPR will comprise of Prof. Dr. Luciene S. Delazari ,Prof. Dr. Maria Cecilia B. Brandalize , Prof. Dr. Claudia Robbi Sluter , André Luiz Alencar de Mendonça and Gisele Canova (IBGE – Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).

We are working to expand this ICA-OSGeo initiative (http://www.osgeo.org/node/1230) globally in our aim to bring the benefits of geospatial technology to all. If you are interested in establishing Open Source Geospatial Lab at your university and build research and teaching collaborations please contact Suchith Anand (Suchith.Anand@nottingham.ac.uk )

First African Open Source Geospatial Laboratory

The first African open source geospatial laboratory, under the auspices of the ICA-OSGeo Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), was recently established at the Centre for Geoinformation Science (CGIS) at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. CGIS engages in open-source research for geospatial software and data, either using open-source geospatial software and data as tools in research, or contributing to the software and data through research. Open source software and data are also used in formal tertiary education and continued education courses at the university. Other research themes in CGIS are forensic geography; space geodesy, earth and atmospheric observation; and spatial data infrastructures. CGIS is led by Dr Serena Coetzee who is looking forward to receiving Prof Georg Gartner, President of the ICA, and Arnulf Christl, President of OSGeo, at the CGIS later this year when they will be in South Africa as keynote speakers at the GISSA Ukubuzana 2012 conference in Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg.

In 2011, the International Cartographic Association (ICA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Open-source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) with a view to develop global collaboration opportunities for academia, industry and government organisations in the field of open-source GIS software and data. The MoU aims to provide expertise and support for the establishment of Open-source Geospatial Laboratories and Research Centres across the world to support the development of open-source geospatial software technologies, training and expertise.

The goal is to establish five laboratories in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas and Australasia during the first phase. These will act as nodes for future expansion. The MoU also aims to provide support for building up and supporting the development of open-source GIS teaching and training materials, and the joint organisation of open-source GIS events and workshops through the ICA network in order to encourage wider participation globally.

For more information please contact Dr Serena Coetzee (serena.coetzee@up.ac.za )

Links:

Centre for Geoinformation Science: http://www.up.ac.za/cgis

International Cartographic Association: http://www.icaci.org

Open Source Geospatial Foundation: http://www.osgeo.org

MoU between ICA and OSGeo: http://www.osgeo.org/node/1230

FOSS4G 2013 will be in Nottingham

FOSS4G will be held in the UK in 2013. FOSS4G is the global and annual conference hosted by Open Source Geospatial Foundation in venues all around the globe. This will be the first time UK hosts the event and we are happy that it will be in Nottingham  . It has  been held in Denver (USA), Barcelona (Spain), Sydney (Australia),  Cape Town (South Africa),  Victoria (Canada) , Lausanne (Switzerland) before. This year’s event will be in Beijing (China) http://2012.foss4g.org/

Thanks to our whole bid team esp Jeremy, Steven, Chris and Jo for all the hard work for making this possible and bringing FOSS4G for the first time to the UK. We are also thankful for the strong letters of support  for our bid from wide range of organisations (from Google to Ordnance Survey) and also individuals who pledged their support for our bid. We believe this will be an excellent opportunity to build more research collaborations . Our bid at http://foss4g4uk.posterous.com/