It is my great pleasure, to introduce our colleagues at the Open Source Geospatial Lab of Department of Geodesy and Surveying at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics , Hungary as our “Geo4All” lab of the month. The Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), is the most significant University of Technology in Hungary and is considered the world’s oldest Institute of Technology which has university rank and structure. It was the first institute in Europe to train engineers at university level [1]. It was founded in 1782. More than 110 departments and institutes operate within the structure of eight faculties. About 1100 lecturers, 400 researchers and other degree holders and numerous invited lecturers and expert specialists participate in education and research at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. The Budapest University of Technology and Economics issues about 70% of Hungary’s engineering degrees. 34 professors/researchers of the university are members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.[2][3].
The OSGeo lab is run by the Department of Geodesy and Surveying and lead by Dr. Zoltán Siki. The members of the lab are Dr. Szabolcs Rózsa, Dr. ZitaUltmann, Ottó Deák, Dr. Csaba Égető, Dr. Bence Takács and Dr. Tamás Tuchband but draws heavily on interactions with other research groups and partners within the University, nationally and internationally.
They offer a range of bespoke courses for OSGEO education . Hungarian trainings are offered in QGIS ,GRASS GIS ,MapServer ,OpenLayers SpatialLite and PostGIS .Their degree programs make use of OSGEO software and tools for data collection, storage and analysis. Their graduates receive a solid grounding in Open Source tools and their applications. Further details on their education programs can be found in their website at http://www.agt.bme.hu/osgeolab/index.php?page=training&lang=en
The Lab has also been active in presenting their research at other wider events. For example it was represented on the 13th Geospatial Information & Technology Association conference hosted by the Hungarian GITA organisation where visitors were able to receive additional information about our OSGeo Lab Budapest .
The OSGEO Lab at Budapest is involved in a number of major international and national research projects. Their team works on further developments of open source software, search/fix bugs and maintain the Hungarian localizations (especially QGIS). They also provide software and spatial expertise to the solution of engineering problems using Open Source tools, software and standards. The Geo for All lab in Budapest University of Technology and Economics welcomes collaborations from all interested and for making contributions to the wider society.
On behalf of the Geo4All community, we thank Zoltán Siki and all colleagues at the Budapest lab for their contributions to the Geo4All initiative and look forward to working and building more collaborations with all interested on this education mission.
Best wishes,
Suchith Anand
[1] http://www.moveonnet.eu/directory/institution?id=HUBUDAPES02
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_University_of_Technology_and_Economics