Georg Gartner (ICA) and Jeff McKenna (OSGeo) shake hands to renew the ICA-OSGeo Memorandum of Understanding at FOSS4G-Europe in Como, Italy, on 16 July 2015
During the most successful FOSS4G Europe conference at Como, Italy, president of OSGeo Jeff McKenna and ICA President Georg Gartner renewed and edited the MoU, which can be found on wiki.osgeo.org.
– Georg Gartner
President of the International Cartographic Association
Prof. Chen Jun (ISPRS President), Jeff McKenna (OSGeo President) and Prof. Georg Gartner (ICA President) during their meeting at AfricaGEO in Cape Town in July 2014 to discuss future collaboration for GeoforAll
In order to direct the development of this initiative an Advisory Board has been found, co-chaired by the Presidents of ICA (Georg Gartner) and OSGeo (Jeff McKenna). Due to the inclusive character of this initiative and a strong interest being expressed several times from the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) is now joining this initiative.
We are looking forward to working together in our common aim to expand geospatial education and opportunities to all.
We are pleased to announce the Advisory Board of the “Geo for All” initiative:
The ICA-OSGeo Lab network is a joint initiative of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and the International Cartographic Association (ICA). The ICA and OSGeo Presidents will be the co-chairs and permanent members of the Advisory Board. Others will have a 3 year term starting date of the Advisory Board being constituted (1 Dec 2013). The Advisory Board has brought together an excellent range of expertise (academia, government, industry) and geographical distribution (we have nearly all continents covered). Also it brought together members from other key communities ISPRS, AGILE, INSPIRE, UNIGIS etc which will make sure is it a fully inclusive global initiative. The Advisory Board will meet once every six months by telemeeting and AB members will keep an eye on the developments and provide strategic advice to the initiative through various forums.
While there has been tremendous growth in geospatial technology over the last few decades, the number of universities offering courses in geospatial science has not kept pace. Free and open geographic information (GI) software helps make geospatial education available to students from economically poor backgrounds worldwide (removing the need for high cost proprietary GI software). Our key aim is to make it possible for students in developing and poor countries to be also able to get geospatial education. This initiative will bring more opportunities for geospatial education worldwide. Over 50 Open Source Geospatial Labs have already been established in universities around the world as part of this initiative in just two year’s time, and we will be establishing over 100 research labs worldwide by September 2014.
We will have over 500 labs established worldwide in the next five years making us the biggest geospatial education and research network on the planet and we now have a good team of experts to guide us for the future. Welcome to all members of the Advisory Board and we are looking forward to their advice and ideas for expanding this education initiative globally!
We thank all of you for your strong support for this education initiative and it is very happy for us that our initiative has now grown rapidly from very humble beginnings and is helping to widen the benefits of geospatial education opportunities to thousands of students worldwide.
Suchith Anand
Website of Geo for All: http://www.geoforall.org/