Meeting of the ICA Commission on Open Source Geospatial Technologies on expanding Open Source Geospatial Labs and Research Centres worldwide

This is an invitation for those of you who are planning to be at ICC 2013 to attend the meeting of the ICA Commission on Open Source Geospatial Technologies  on 28th Aug 2013 . Details below

Date – 28 August 2013 (Wednesday)
Time  – 14:30 – 16:00
Venue – International Congress Centre, Dresden

The focus of the meeting will be welcoming new members and updating all on the various activities and in particular expansion plans for Open Source Geospatial Labs in universities and educational institutes worldwide as per the ICA-OSGeo MoU.

We now have over 25 research labs established across the planet. With strong government policy instruments and investments happening in Open Data and Open GIS , we are in a very strong position to keep up the momentum for bringing more investment to keep expanding our research labs and achieve our target of establishing over 100 research labs worldwide in 3 years’ time to rapidly accelerate research and teaching opportunities in geospatial science for universities worldwide.

Details of ICC 2013 conference and registration are at http://www.icc2013.org/  

We look forward to see and discuss ideas with many of you there.

First Australian Open Source Geospatial Laboratory to Support Smarter Cities will be built at the University of Melbourne

The University of Melbourne will be home to Australia’s first Open Source Geospatial Laboratory. The laboratory will support urban research and educational excellence through the use of location based (geospatial) data and tools.

The Laboratory will undertake research and provide training resources which utilises digital data and analytical and visualisation tools to up-skill a myriad of disciplines in evidenced based decision-making practices. Training will be delivered both into existing University curriculum and through a series of workshops and short-courses.

The laboratory is expected to attract considerable interest from urban geographers, spatial scientists, planners and policy-makers who are keen to contribute to and learn about the latest available data driven techniques to support evidenced based decision-making. The laboratory will utilise the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN).

AURIN http://aurin.org.au is a $20 million open source e-infrastructure initiative which is unlocking datasets of relevance to Australia’s cities and providing an analytical toolkit to inform sustainable urban futures.

The software used to support activities of the laboratory is open source, meaning the source code can be modified and re-distributed royalty and fee free. This open source geospatial laboratory is a joint initiative of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).  The laboratory will see scientists and practitioners from the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) collaborate closely with University colleagues.  This Australian facility will be part of a global network of open geospatial research labs known as ICA-OSGeo labs. Currently there are 22 ICA-OSGeo labs operating globally.

Dr Christopher Pettit, Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne, Victorian Chair of the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) and Strategic Implementation Co-ordinator of AURIN will lead the initiative.

“The University of Melbourne is one of the top research universities in the world and has been a pioneer in Australian geospatial science research,” said Professor Tom Kvan, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. “We are delighted to collaborate with the ICA and OSGeo to create this opportunity for our students and researchers, which will encourage open geospatial teaching and related research in other universities.”

The facility will open in Sep 2013.

OSGeo is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2006 whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open source geospatial technologies and data.

ICA is the world authoritative body for cartography, the discipline dealing with the conception,production, dissemination and study of maps.

More details at   http://icaci.org/first-australian-open-source-geospatial-laboratory-to-support-smarter-cities-will-be-built-at-the-university-of-melbourne/

NASA Europa challenge Projects

Well done to all the teams who participated in the NASA Worldwind Europa challenge 2013 for their excellent work.

All the projects were excellent and covered a broad range of domains from transportation to air quality to linked data. The challenge achieved its objective of inspiring ideas for building great applications that serves the INSPIRE Directive and uses NASA’s open source virtual globe technology World Wind.

Special thanks to  all the organisers and participants esp.  Prof. Maria Brovelli (Politecnico di Milano) and Patrick Hogan (NASA) whose efforts made this a great success.

Details at  http://eurochallenge.como.polimi.it/?q=projects

Fourth Open Source GIS Summer School course materials now available

We are happy to inform that teaching materials of the Fourth Open Source GIS Summer School at Girona are now made available online at

http://www.sigte.udg.edu/summerschool2013/  for the benefit of the wider community. Please feel free to share this resource with your colleagues and students.

Special thanks to SIGTE, University of Girona who organised this and all staff who contributed for this and students who participated in the summer school and making this initiative a great success.

UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre visit

On 2nd July 2013,  Dr. Suchith Anand and Prof. Mike Jackson (University of Nottingham) visited UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre http://www.gridw.pl and met with Maria Andrzejewska’ (Director) and  Elżbieta Wołoszyńska-Wiśniewska (Geoinformation Senior specialist).  It was really good to discuss ideas and to see some of their interesting projects using Open Source GIS esp. their training programs.

It was great to see some of the work they are doing as part of GIS for Schools initiative esp. the lesson plan templates and examples developed which is relevant to the wider community.

http://www.edugis.pl/en/images/stories/guide/gis-at-school.pdf

Full details at http://www.edugis.pl/en/

Ela (email- elzbieta.woloszynska@gridw.pl )  will be pleased to hear from those interested in using EduGIS Academy guidebook   to collect their reflections, comments, etc.

Register for Webinar on ‘All about the gvSIG Project’ – August 12th, 2013

MundoGEO [1] and gvSIG Association [2] invite you to join a webinar about the gvSIG Project.

This webinar will deal with the evolution of the gvSIG Project, the main characteristics about gvSIG Desktop and its extensions, the gvSIG Association and the gvSIG Community. In order to explain gvSIG features, practical examples will be shown by video demonstration.

With free registration, this event is oriented to everyone who wants to know all about the gvSIG Project, how they can use this Geographic Information System, how to participate, etc.

Attendees will be able to interact with the speakers by sending their comments and questions through chat. All attendees of this web seminar will receive certificates for their participation.

– Webinar: All about the gvSIG Project
– Date: Monday, August 12, 2013
– Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM GMT
Local time:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Webinar+%27All+about+the+gvSIG+Project%27&iso=20130812T14
– Language: English
– System requirements:
PC based attendees – Windows 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Mac based attendees – Mac OS X 10.6 or newer
Mobile attendees – iPhone, iPad, Android phone or Android tablet
– Space is limited!

Reserve your Webinar seat now free of charge:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/561955338

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

[1] http://mundogeo.com/
[2] http://www.gvsig.com