The Pledge – I support Open Principles for Science and Education for building a better world for everyone

It is over a decade now since we started working on the philosophy of Openness in Geospatial Science  and Education [1],[2],[3].

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Please find below the  pledge for  supporting Open Principles for Science and Education for building a better world for everyone .

“I believe Science is a public good and quality education opportunities should be open and accessible for everyone.

I will work to eliminate the digital divide and contribute to building up Open Knowledge for the benefit of all humanity, with special effort to enlighten future generations.

I contribute my service for the betterment of all humanity using the guiding principles of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in building a better world for everyone.

I will work to advance and increase Open Knowledge for the benefit of all humanity with special consideration of those less fortunate.

I will be a voice for Open Principles in Science and Education and promote this pledge through my networks.”

Thank you for your support.

 

[1] http://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijgi/special_issues/science-applications

[2] http://www.springer.com/earth+sciences+and+geography/geography/journal/40965

[3] http://www.geoconnexion.com/uploads/publication_pdfs/uk_v15i18-058-059-Op951AF3.pdf

 

A Small Circle in Asia Contains More Than Half the World’s Population – But How many GI Scientists are from here?

For decades high cost proprietary GIS reduced the education and entrepreneurship  opportunities in GIS for the economically poor.

asia

 

But now Thanks to the Open Source Geospatial Foundation and all OSGeo and open education volunteers , these inequalities for access to geospatial software and learning opportunities  is changing fast.It is the efforts of OSGeo volunteers that helped make tools like QGIS  available free to all schools worldwide forever.
futuregeo

Future is shaped by the decisions made by  everyone everyday. Thank you to all OSGeo volunteers for your work that has made possible  Geo education opportunities  accessible  for all . Be our GeoAmbassadors and let  us pledge and work  for open principles in science and education  to eradicate extreme poverty and enable shared prosperity for all.

More details at https://www.slideshare.net/SuchithAnand/the-future-of-geo-is-open 

https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2017/07/the-future-of-geo-is-open/ 

http://www.ee.co.za/article/open-source-conference-promotes-spatial-literacy.html

The Future of Geo is Open

This is a request for help as I need inputs from the wider community to get more ideas for my presentation at FOSS4G-Europe 2017 later this month. FOSS4G-Europe 2017 will be held at the École Nationale des Sciences Géographiques (ENSG) in Paris, France, from July 18th to 22nd, 2017 . Details at http://europe.foss4g.org/2017/

geoforall

My keynote presentation will be on “The Future of Geo is Open” and I would like to invite ideas/inputs for this. It is also an good time to reflect on the developments in Open Geospatial Science [1],[2],[3] as it is over a decade now since we started working on the philosophy of Openness in Geospatial Science  and Education.

I am looking forward to discussing new ideas with you all at FOSS4G-Europe 2017.

Best wishes,

Suchith

 

[1] http://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijgi/special_issues/science-applications

[2] http://www.springer.com/earth+sciences+and+geography/geography/journal/40965

[3] http://www.geoconnexion.com/uploads/publication_pdfs/uk_v15i18-058-059-Op951AF3.pdf

Lab of the Month – the Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering of the University of Trento, Italy

It is my great pleasure, to introduce our colleagues at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering of the University of Trento, Italy as the GeoForAll Lab of the month .The laboratory http://www.ing.unitn.it/~grass/ aims to support the research in the spatial information field, the development of FOSS4G systems and the education using FOSS. Research has lead to the development of new data processing techniques which have been implemented as FOSS4G, see e.g. the signal and image segmentation software by Alfonso Vitti [0] or GRASS’ modules for GNSS planning [1].geo1The PyGRASS library [2], which allows the access to low-level GRASS APIs using the python language, has been developed by Pietro Zambelli while he was PhD student at the laboratory for the Google Summer of Code 2012. Clara Tattoni and Marco Ciolli research is focussed on the use of FOSS4G in ecology: conservation of endangered species, invasion of pests and historical spatio temporal variation of alpine forest coverage and developement of future scenarios.     They have been organising a Summer school for Tanzanian Ecologists and International students for several years (see newsletter V2 n3). They recently digitized and distributed the historical map of the Italian Kingdom of 1936[6].

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The laboratory has published a lot of educational material on its main web site [3]: GRASS and QGIS tutorials, lectures slides, live DVDs and Virtual Machines. It has organized many one-day workshops about FOSS4G during national and international conferences, including international FOSS4G meetings and for professionals [5]. The laboratory is involved in the Italian GRASS users and has hosted its 2001 and 2011 meetings. In 2002 the laboratory organized the “Open Source Free Software GIS – GRASS users conference 2002”, the first GRASS meeting in 8 years, starting a series of conferences which converged in the FOSS4G meetings in 2006.

geo4On behalf of the GeoForAll community, we thank Clara Tattoni, Paolo Zatelli and all colleagues from the the University of Trento’ lab for their contributions to the GeoForAll initiative and look forward to working and building more collaborations with all interested on this education mission.

Best wishes,

Suchith

[0] http://www.ing.unitn.it/~vittia/sw/index.html

[1] http://www.ing.unitn.it/~grass/software.html

[2] https://grasswiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Python/pygrass

[3] http://www.ing.unitn.it/~grass/

[4] http://www.ing.unitn.it/~grass/conferences/GRASS2002/home.html

[5] http://events.unitn.it/grass2017

[6] http://193.205.194.133/

 

 

 

 

GeoAmbassador– Prof. Dr. Josef Strobl

It is my great pleasure to introduce our excellent colleague Prof. Dr. Josef Strobl as our GeoAmbassador. Josef Strobl is Professor at the Department of Geoinformatics at the University of Salzburg, Austria. He is one of the pioneers involved in expanding geoeducation esp. online GIS education through the UNIGIS International Association . He is not only the chair of UNIGIS but also the brains behind the success of UNIGIS . Josef  is the force behind GI_Forum GeoInformatics Forum Salzburg which helped establish University of Salzburg at the centre of key developments by bringing together the GI-Forum community to discuss new ideas and developments for the future.

I greatly admire his leadership abilities and vision. When we established GeoForAll, he was one of the first visionaries that we approached to serve on our Advisory Board . We thank Josef and colleagues for establishing the 75th OSGeo lab at the University of Salzburg.

Josef

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A geographer by training and research, Dr Strobl has over 30-years research and teaching experiences. He obtained his Master and PhD from the University of Vienna in 1982 and 1984, respectively. His research interests are in Geographical Information Science and Systems, Remote Sensing and Image Processing., Spatial Analysis, Digital Terrain Models, Spatial modelling of renewable energy potentials, Spatial Statistics and Geostatistics. Modelling and Simulation of dynamic processes. Open Systems architectures, interfaces, metadata and catalogues – SDI, Location based services. Internet-based distance education. Active learning in online environments and design of interactive learning materials, Learning with Geoinformation – from spatial awareness to thinking to citizenship.

His services to the geo community are immense. He serves as the Full Member, of Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and Chair ÖAW Commission for GIScience. He is the Co-Founder and President (2007-2011) Austrian Umbrella Org. for Geographical Information (AGEO).. Board. He is the Founder and President since 1999 International Institute for Geographic Information (IIG).

Josef is member of GISIG Executive Committee , Member of Eurogi Executive Committee , Council Member of the International Society of Digital Earth (ISDE ). Josef serves in the Editorial board memberships of GIScience , International Journal of Geoinformatics , ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information ,Journal of Geomatics .He has (Visiting) faculty positions at many universities worldwide.
I am grateful for this opportunity of introducing some of our amazing colleagues from different parts of our world each month as our GeoAmbassadors and get inspired by their amazing work and contributions for the wider community. We are proud to honour Josef as our GeoAmbassodor and we are extremely grateful for his contributions to Geo for All. Josef is a great ambassador for Geospatial Science globally. May I also use this opportunity to send greetings on behalf of GeoForAll to all colleagues now  at GI_Forum 2017 this week (July 4-7 , 2017) and wishing them productive meetings and discussions.

Best wishes,
Suchith Anand

http://jstrobl.zgis.net/
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/m/strobl-josef/
http://www.unigis.net
http://www.gi-forum.org