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/

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *