EUROGEO 2017

The EUROGEO 2017 Conference is organised in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on 2-3 March 2017.

Geographical education is facing many challenges at schools and in higher education. The purpose of EUROGEO 2017 is to examine some of these issues and their possible responses.

Screen Shot 2017-02-22 at 14.02.00

EUROGEO 2017 will aim to address cross-cutting issues such as:

  • How does geographical education respond to needs of society and the world around us?
  • Does geographical education give young people the necessary tools they need to think spatially?
  • How do new technologies and open access to data help engage youngsters?
  • How should education respond to the ever-increasing importance of geographic information?

 

SDI-Open 2017

28th International Cartographic Conference pre-conference workshop on Spatial data infrastructures, standards, open source and open data for geospatial

SDI-Open 2017 

Jointly organized by the Commission on Open Source Geospatial Technologies and the Commission on SDI and Standards

1- 2 July 2017

 the George Washington University, Washington DC, United States

Details at http://sdistandards.icaci.org/sdi-open-2017-pre-conference-workshop/

 

SDI-Open 2015 was held at IBGE in Rio de Janeiro and was a great success thanks to everyone who contributed.

Proceedings at

http://sdistandards.icaci.org/sdi-open-2015-proceedings/

http://sdistandards.icaci.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/SDI-Open2015_Proceedings.pdf

Screen Shot 2017-02-22 at 13.07.16

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We request you all to support SDI-Open 2017

STEM education using Open Principles

Happy to share this excellent updates from our GeoForAll colleagues in Tanzania. Over the first week of January 2017, a group of 60 secondary school students gathered at Marian University College, Bagamoyo for a ground-breaking training session – the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Youth Boot Camp organised by Projekt Inspire in collaboration with the Ramani Huria team. These students, hailing from different regions of Tanzania (Dar es Salaam, Moshi, Arusha, Mbeya, to name a few), were there to be introduced to GIS and web mapping using open source technologies  and open data .

More details at https://hotosm.org/updates/2017-01-26_ramani_huria_trains_secondary_school_students_during_stem_boot_camp

QGIS

Picture 1 – Students learning map production using free and open technologies like QGIS (Photos thanks to  Projekt Inspire)

Some videos of this kindly send by Edward and team below

Summary of the bootcamp at https://youtu.be/yKIwgy656VA

Mapping Class at  https://youtu.be/v2iHAiYoxf0

Data-Entry-OSM

Figure 2- Students adding buildings  data into Open Street Map (Photo thanks to  Projekt Inspire)

More video about thier works can be found here at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3MK1kTDMAVuqsnFYIe-IIw

This as a great example of STEM education using Geo and Open Principles. This is really inspiring efforts for expanding STEM education for all by OSM and Ramani Huria team.  I really hope more students in developing countries will also get opportunity to get quality STEM education opportunities in the near future. GeoForAll will build upon this ideas and expand this globally. FOSS4G-Africa 2017.It is great opportunity to expand ideas. Details at https://foss4g-africa.org/en/home/

Best wishes,

Suchith

NASA-GODAN Local Farming challenge 2017

We are welcoming participation from all interested for the NASA-GODAN Local Farming challenge. Background of the challenge at http://aims.fao.org/es/activity/blog/godan-local-farming-challenge-2017

We want to bring together researchers and students to find solutions for local farming in growing cities, using open agriculture and nutrition data. Participants must use some aspect of the OpenCitySmart Design and use NASA’s open source virtual globe technology, WebWorldWind as a source of open data. Ideas may include ways for optimally linking local farming communities directly with potential customers, tools for visualising spatio-temporal aspects of local farming, tools for helping reducing wastage (for example linking with local food banks), and any number of solutions for helping our goal of Zero Hunger.

godan_nasa

More information at http://eurochallenge.como.polimi.it/

Challenge due date: August 8, 2017

Prize: 1000 Euros for the winning team and certificates from GODAN and NASA.

Contact: suchith.anand@godan.info

More details at http://www.godan.info/news/godan-nasa-europa-student-challenge-announcement

Invitation to Capacity Development WG

Currently, nearly 800 million people struggle with debilitating hunger and malnutrition and can be found in every corner of the globe. That’s one in every nine people, with the majority being women and children. The Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) [1] supports the proactive sharing of open data to make information about agriculture and nutrition available, accessible and usable to deal with the urgent challenge of ensuring world food security. A core principle behind GODAN is that a solution to Zero Hunger lies within existing, but often unavailable, agriculture and nutrition data.

hague_logos

The Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs, CABI, GODAN, CTA and Wageningen UR  partnered to organise the 3rd Workshop on Creating Impacts with Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition[1] . The workshop was hosted at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the Hague earlier this week. I am happy to share the ideas that i  presented for the GODAN  Capacity Development WG [3] at the Hague meeting.

Details at https://www.slideshare.net/SuchithAnand/godan-working-group-on-capacity-development

I would like to welcome all interested to join the GODAN WG on Capacity Development and contribute to education and training on Open Data in food and agricultural sciences. This is open and free to all interested. Join at https://dgroups.org/fao/godan_cd

Best wishes,

Suchith

Dr. Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org/
https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org

GeoForAll – Building and expanding Open Geospatial Science

[1] https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/genius/documents/godan-uon-intro.pdf

[2] http://g4aw.spaceoffice.nl/en/News/Agenda/68/3rd-International-Workshop-Creating-Impact-with-Open-Data-in-Agriculture-and-Nutrition.html

[3] http://www.godan.info/working-groups/capacity-development

Greetings to everyone as we celebrate our 11th Anniversary

Dear colleagues,

Today, The Open Source Geospatial Foundation celebrates our 11th Anniversary. I would like to  send our greetings to everyone on the happy occassion of 11th Anniversary of when our  Foundation was founded (4th Feb 2006) [1] .The Open Source Geospatial Foundation has come a long way . The Open Source Geospatial Foundation is now the world’s largest Geospatial ecosystem , so we welcome you to the huge network of our partners and collaborators globally from governments, industry , universities, NGOs worldwide that you can connect to expand your ideas rapidly. Open innovation is key in driving Digital Economy opportunities and we are determined to make sure that everyone benefits.

On this happy occassion, i am pleased to honour Dr. Rafael Moreno-Sanchez as our GeoAmbassador. Rafael established GeoForAll lab at the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver, USA. Details at https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2017/02/geoambassador-dr-rafael-moreno-sanchez/

It is also my great pleasure to introduce our colleagues at the Open Source Geospatial Lab [2] of The Department of Geodesy and Geoinformatics of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Belgrade as our “GeoForAll” lab of the month. Details at https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2017/02/geoforall-lab-of-the-month-open-source-geospatial-lab-belgrade-serbia/

On behalf of the GeoForAll community, we thank Dr. Milan KIlibarda and all colleagues from the University of Belgrade and for their contributions to the GeoForAll initiative and look forward to working and building more collaborations with all interested on this education mission.

Happy birthday to OSGeo Foundation and may God’s grace and blessings be with all of us and OSGeo for our efforts to empower everyone with open geo principles  to help create a world that is more accessible, equitable and full of innovation and opportunities for everyone.

May the FOSS be with everyone…

Best wishes,

Suchith

Dr. Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org/
https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org

GeoForAll – Building and expanding Open Geospatial Science

“GeoForAll” Lab of the Month – Open Source Geospatial Lab, Belgrade, Serbia

Today, The Open Source Geospatial Foundation celebrates our 11th Anniversary. On behalf  of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation i would like to  send our greetings to everyone on the happy occassion of 11th Anniversary of when our  Foundation was founded (4th Feb 2006) at http://www.osgeo.org/node/1672

It is my great pleasure, to introduce our colleagues at the Open Source Geospatial Lab of The Department of Geodesy and Geoinformatics of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Belgrade as our “GeoForAll” lab of the month. The Department of Geodesy and Geoinformatics of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Belgrade has been actively using open source software in education of geodetic engineers at the undergraduate, graduate and PhD studies. A large number of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral thesis has been created using open source software. Additionally, a significant number of scientific papers written by members of the department has also been published using open source software. The development of Laboratory for development of open source geospatial technologies – OSGL Belgrade at the Department of Geodesy and Geoinformatics seemed like the logical next step in the process of promotion and cultivation of a open source approach to the improvement of teaching and research at the University of Belgrade. In addition to intensive use of open source in BSc and MSc courses, there is an example of contribution to open source community from Luka Glušica, an OSGL Belgrade member and master student of the Geoinformatics module at the Department of Geodesy and Geoinformatics who has got Google Summer of Code scholarship. Luka is currently working on his master thesis in the field of Information Technologies in Cartography at OSGL Belgrade, under the mentorship of Dr. Milan Kilibarda. Luka works on development of JavaScript framework that will allow developers to easily implement istSOS functionality in existing or new web application. (details: https://webpractice-lukag.github.io/istSOS-Web-API/)

Screen Shot 2017-02-04 at 17.45.36

In addition to their teaching obligations, members of OSGL lab are also involved in international and national scientific and innovation projects. One of the ongoing projects is APOLLO, the EU-funded HORIZON 2020 project aiming to develop a market-ready platform of agricultural advisory services for primarily, but not exclusively, at smallholder farmers in Europe. The APOLLO project aims to bring benefits of precision agriculture to farmers through affordable information services, making extensive use of free and open Earth Observation data, such as those provided by the European Union’s Copernicus programme. These services will help farmers to make better decisions by monitoring growth and health of crops, providing advice on when to irrigate and till their fields, and estimating the yields. Ultimately, these interventions should lead to decreased costs and higher yields – and therefore increased profitability and competitiveness. (http://apollo-h2020.eu/)

Recently completed Serbian research data portal which was developed under Danube Data and Services Infrastructure (DRDSI) project was also made at OSGL Belgrade using open source Geonetwork (http://osgl.grf.bg.ac.rs/en/services/geonetwork/). “The purpose of the work within the Serbian research data portal is to establish a ‘local node’ for the DRDSI in Serbia and to explore how this approach could be adopted by key actors in the country. This work created a ready and sustained means to harvest metadata using an Open Data approach, based on the technologies used by the DRDSI platform. In addition, it acts as a demonstrator for other organisations to share data by documenting the approach and experience gained, creating further content for the DRDSI Platform.” (from: Data Infrastructures in Support of Macro-Regional Development. Experiences and Lessons Learned from the Danube Region; EUR 28297 EN; doi:10.2791/42047 )

Many workshops and conferences were organised by OSGL Belgrade. Some examples below

GeoMLA: Geostatistics and Machine Learning Applications in Climate and Environmental Sciences; (http://geomla.grf.bg.ac.rs/)

WorldDailyMeteo: space-time interpolation of daily meteorological variables at 1 km resolution;(http://dailymeteo.org/2014), folowed by Special issue in Spatial Statistics

Spatial and spatio-temporal modeling of meteorological and climatic variables using Open Source software (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211675315000536)

R+OSGeo in higher education (http://geostat-course.org/R_OSGeo_in_Education_Belgrade)

Screen Shot 2017-02-04 at 17.41.51

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OSGL Belgrade core team from left: Nemanja Branisavljevic, Dragutin Protic, Branislav Bajat, Milan KIlibarda, Ognjen Antonijevic, Luka Glusica, Aleksandar Sekulic

The GeoForAll lab in University of Belgrade welcomes collaborations from all interested and for making contributions to the wider society. More details at http://osgl.grf.bg.ac.rs/en/

On behalf of the GeoForAll community, we thank Dr. Milan KIlibarda and all colleagues from the University of Belgrade and for their contributions to the GeoForAll initiative and look forward to working and building more collaborations with all interested on this education mission.

Happy birthday to OSGeo Foundation and may God’s grace and blessings be with all of us and OSGeo for our efforts to empower everyone with open geo principles  to help create a world that is more accessible, equitable and full of innovation and opportunities for everyone.

Best wishes,

Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org/

GeoAmbassador  – Dr. Rafael Moreno-Sanchez

Today, The Open Source Geospatial Foundation celebrates our 11th Anniversary. On behalf  of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation i would like to  send our greetings to everyone on the happy occassion of 11th Anniversary of when our  Foundation was founded (4th Feb 2006) at http://www.osgeo.org/node/1672

It is my great pleasure to introduce Dr. Rafael Moreno-Sanchez as our GeoAmbassador. Rafael is currently working at the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver, USA. He has a bachelor’s degree in forestry from the Chapingo Autonomous University in Mexico. He received his Ph.D. in Natural Resources Management from Colorado State University in the USA. Before joining academia full time in 1996, he was a researcher for the National Institute for Forest, Livestock, and Agriculture Research (INIFAP) in Mexico; Director of the National Center for Disciplinary Research in Conservation and Improvement of Forest Ecosystems INIFAP (Mexico); and Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Organization of American States—SEMARNAP in collaboration with the University of Western Ontario (Canada). He has been teaching full time since 1996 in the areas of natural resources management, sustainable development, and geographic information science and technology. He is currently in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver.

Screen Shot 2017-02-04 at 17.30.22

Dr. Rafael Moreno-Sanchez

Rafael Moreno led the effort to establish the FOSS4G lab which opened in 2014 in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado (CU Denver) (https://geospatial.ucdenver.edu/foss4g/home-2).

Screen Shot 2017-02-04 at 17.30.32

 

 

Since then four new courses fully dedicated to FOSS4G have been created. These offerings add to already existing geographic information system science and technology (GISc&T) courses that use FOSS4G exclusively or for parts of their content. Currently CU Denver offers a total of 38 courses that are core or applied GISc&T. In the fall of 2016 a Certificate in FOSS4G was formally approved by the university Educational Policies and Curriculum Committee. The university is planning to offer this certificate fully online starting in the fall of 2018. Currently the CU Denver FOSS4G lab coordinates the webinar series [1] for Geo4All labs network [2]. A new GIS science and technology research lab at CU Denver opened this spring semester and it will incorporate teaching, research, and service activities in FOSS4G.

Screen Shot 2017-02-04 at 17.30.44

 

Figure – Activities at FOSS4G lab , CU Denver

 Geo for All is committed to work towards the vision of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development for building a better world for everyone. Open Education is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general and the internet in particular provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse knowledge. Openness is key for true empowerment and sustainability. [3]

Geo for All is a worldwide movement that provides immediate benefit to the world. We will also link the ideas from Maps and Sustainable Development Goals to our Vision 2030 for Open Geospatial Science as there are also lot of synergies and will add momentum for our vision for Open Geospatial Science [4] . We aim to create openness in Geo Education for developing creative and open minds in students which is critical for building open innovation and contributes to building up Open Knowledge for the benefit of the whole society and for our future generations.

We are looking forward to building  strong research and teaching collaborations  worldwide in Open Geospatial Science. We are proud to honour Rafael as our GeoAmbassodor and we are extremely grateful for his contributions to Geo for All.

Happy birthday to OSGeo Foundation and may God’s grace and blessings be with all of us and OSGeo for our efforts to empower everyone with open geo principles  to help create a world that is more accessible, equitable and full of innovation and opportunities for everyone.

Best wishes,

Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org/

[1] http://www.geoforall.org/webinars/

[2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Edu_current_initiatives

[3] https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/07/sharing-is-caring-why-openness-is-key-for-true-empowerment-and-sustainability/

[4] https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/06/open-consultation-on-the-vision-2030-for-open-geospatial-science/