Please support Presidents of Universities United against Hunger (PUSH)

Dear colleagues,

It was World Food Day [1] earlier this week  . It is very worring that Hunger levels are increasing globally. We need to promote worldwide awareness and action for those who suffer from hunger and the need to ensure food security and nutritious diets for all.

On behalf of Presidents of Universities United against Hunger (PUSH), I take the liberty to share with you the global pledge PUSH is  launching, attempting to gather as many universities worldwide as possible, in this common pledge against world hunger.

PUSH

PUSH is an initiative which unites universities in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. Nearly 800 million people struggle with debilitating hunger and malnutrition in every corner of the globe. That’s one in every nine people, with the majority being women and children. Leadership from the top will expedite progress in addressing this critical local and global issue. Presidents/Chancellors from four continents have signed the PUSH Commitment, establishing a framework for collaboration and a blueprint for action to achieve food and nutrition security. Details at http://wp.auburn.edu/push

As you will see in the PUSH_Presidents’CommitmenttoFoodandNutritionSecurity, there is no financial or other obligation from those who support the pledge, other than their commitment and the one of the university they represent, to state their commitment to be part of this global movement against hunger.

We would be most grateful if you could share this pledge with your contacts in universities to seek his/her signature to the attached pledge.  In turn, the signed copy could be scanned and sent back either to me or to the address appearing on it. Looking forward to your prompt response and strong support for our common pledge against world hunger.

Best wishes,

Suchith

 

[1] http://www.fao.org/world-food-day/2017/theme/en/

Call for tutors for the UN Open GIS Initiative

If you have expertise in QGIS and would like to volunteer your expertise for UN Open GIS Initiative online self paced  courses [1] please email  directly Prof. Maria Antonia Brovelli ( email – maria.brovelli@polimi.it )

The UN Open GIS Initiative aims at identifying and developing open source geospatial solutions that meets the requirements of UN operations, taking full advantage of the expertise of mission partners. The scope of the UN Open GIS initiative covers not only the development of geospatial software for the entire lifecycle of geospatial information at enterprise level from data collections, management, and sharing of geospatial data to geospatial analysis and web and mobile geospatial applications for UN operations, but also the capacity building of the UN for the sustainability and eventual technology transfer to other potential user groups.

UNOpenGIS

More details are at http://unopengis.org/about.html

Your help and support for the UN OpenGIS Initiative will be greatly appreciated.

[1] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/geoforall/2017-September/004118.html

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation and the International Geographical Union sign MoU

Tsu, Japan, 30 September, 2017

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and the International Geographical Union (IGU) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a collaborative relationship between the global community of Geography professionals and the Open Source Geospatial community. The goal of this agreement is to promote the distribution and use of open geo-data in research, teaching and applications, promote the development of related GIS and Remote Sensing Open Source software, to work closely with the GeoForAll initiative in promoting open principles in education and science, and to organize joint international workshops on global geo-information sharing through the use of open geo-data and Open Source Geospatial software

IGU1Fig: Professor Venkatesh Raghavan (President of OSGeo) and Professor Yukio Himiyama, (President of the IGU) at the MoU Signing at Tsu, Japan on 30th Sep 2017

Professor Yukio Himiyama, President of the IGU, said “The IGU Executive Committee believes that this MoU offers potential of to IGU and OSGeo to make great contribution to society, and is excited to assist bridging the world geographic community with the Open Source geospatial community, and to support this bottom-up initiative.Some IGU Commissions may plan to organize joint international meetings on global geo-information sharing, while still others may wish to promote the distribution and use of open geo-data sets, So, let’s work together!”

IGU2

Professor Venkatesh Raghavan, President of OSGeo, said “Partnership with IGU will help further the goals and objectives of the OSGeo Foundation and foster R&D of high societal value. This MoU will bring OSGeo and IGU communities closer and complement each others strengths and extend their global reach. This is exciting news for the OSGeo community and its GeoForAll educational outreach. Look forward for fruitful collaborations between IGU and OSGeo

*About IGU*

The International Geographical Union (IGU) is an international,non-governmental, professional organization devoted to the development of the discipline of Geography.The purposes of the IGU are primarily to promote Geography through initiating and coordinating geographical research and teaching in all countries of the world.

*About OSGeo*

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open source geospatial technologies and data. GeoForAll [1] is a collaborative education and research outreach initiative of OSGeo for making geospatial education and opportunities accessible to all.

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

GeoAmbassador – Sven Schade

On behalf of the GeoForAll community, it is my great pleasure to honour Sven Schade as our GeoAmbassador. Sven Schade is a Scientific Project Officer at the European Commission’s science and knowledge service, the Joint Research Centre (JRC). He is based at the Ispra site in Northern Italy. Being a Geospatial Information Scientist by education (among the first to study Geoinformatics in Europe), Sven became a strong promoter of open principles and public participation in scientific research. Building on a wide range of experiences reaching from Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs), data interoperability and Semantic Web technology, via environmental research and Citizen Science, all the way to decision support systems and scientific support to policy making, he got into the rare position of being able to interconnect highly diverse communities and to foster multi-disciplinary collaborations.

sven_2015

Sven Schade

Examples of his service include his contributions as a member of the Advisory Board of the GeoForAll initiative (http://www.geoforall.org/), the Advisory Board of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA, https://ecsa.citizen-science.net/) – as co-chair, and the council of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE, http://www.digitalearth-isde.org/). As an editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructure Research (IJSDIR, http://ijsdir.jrc.ec.europa.eu/) he also supports open and free publication practices. Recently the portfolio of research papers and critical notes from the field has been extended to geospatial data set descriptions, so that also research on gathering and processing data can be better rewarded.

One of his main activities at present concentrate on the relationship between Citizen Science (i.e. research conducted – at least partially – by laypersons) and environment-related policy making. As part of the so called Environmental Knowledge Community (EKC), Sven leads the related collaborative work with colleagues from the European Commission (DG Environment, DG Joint Research Centre, DG Research and Innovation, DG Clima, SDG Eurostat and the European Environment Agency), and external partners with a view to develop a shred understanding of environmental issues, improve decision making and strengthen trustful relationships. Apart from openness and transparency, the potentials in using geospatially-aware methods and tools are immense, and a highly important – but not the only – part of new and innovative solutions. Current investigations include, for example, the use of mobile application to monitor invasive alien species – plant and animals that spear outside their usual territory and cause harm to e.g. human health or agricultural production – (see http://digitalearthlab.jrc.ec.europa.eu/app/invasive-alien-species-europe); a mobile phone app and its use for raising awareness and collect data about natural protected areas, Natura 2000 (see http://digitalearthlab.jrc.ec.europa.eu/app/mynatura2000); and work on an open source (hardware and software) solution to accurately measure air quality (see http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/16/3/403).

sven1

Parts of the above mentioned work is routed in the MYGEOSS project (http://digitalearthlab.jrc.ec.europa.eu/mygeoss/), to which Sven also contributed as part of the project team. It was an initiative to develop GEOSS-based (Global Earth Observation System of Systems) smart Internet applications informing European citizens on the changes affecting their local environment. Apart from few applications that were developed in-house by the JRC, the majority of applications was developed through three open calls for innovative ideas (with the condition to use and produce open source software and data). All source code has been made available openly. Behind the scenes, the experiences gained from this work, also helped to evaluate submissions to the University Challenge of the Copernicus Masters program (see, for example, http://www.copernicus-masters.com/prize/university-challenge/), NASA World Wind Europa Challenges (see, for example, http://www.nasaeuropachallenge.com/).

Alongside his services as program committee member to conferences such as AGILE, Big Data from Space, INSPIRE, and Earth Observation Science 2.0, Sven provides continuous support to the scientific tracks of the European and the International FOSS4G conferences. His ambitions to push for open science is also continued when reviewing scientific articles for journals such as PlosONE, First Monday, Transactions in GIS, International Journal of Geographic Information Science, Computers & Geosciences, and Semantic Web – Interoperability, Usability, Applicability Journal.

Sven is working for the JRC since 2013, where he was already employed for three years as a post-doc (2009-2012). Before re-joining the JRC, he worked at the European Environment Agency (EEA) as project manager for the Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS). In his early career, Sven spent ten years with the Institute for Geoinformatics (IfGI) of the University of Muenster – where he completed his diploma and PhD studies (in 2004 and 2009, respectively) and contributed to numerous national and European-level research projects in the area of geospatial information science. At IfGI, Sven was employed as a member of the Münster Semantic Interoperability Lab (MUSIL) and between 2006 and 2009 he also worked as technical consultant for Geospatial Partners s.r.l.

Everybody reading this and identifying items of interest I kindly invited to contact Sven directly. You are also kindly invited to submit an article contribution to IJSDIR, here: http://ijsdir.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.php/ijsdir/pages/view/authors

We are proud to honour Sven Shade as our GeoAmbassodor and we are extremely grateful for his contributions to GeoForAll and for his selfless contributions for expanding geoeducation opportunities for all.

Best wishes,

Suchith Anand