[OSGeo Africa] Fwd: [OSGeo-Discuss] Nepal earthquakes - wake up call for action to support building geocapacity globally

[Enock Seth Nyamador]

Let's help Nepal.

Best,

- Enock
twitter: @Enock4seth
enockseth.github.io | [[User:Enock4seth]]


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, May 14, 2015 at 7:25 PM
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Nepal earthquakes - wake up call for action to
support building geocapacity globally
To: "discuss at lists.osgeo.org" <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>, "
ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org" <ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>


Colleagues,

It is really sad to see  two earthquakes (in less than a fortnight) hitting
Nepal . I thank all colleagues who have been contributing to the
Humanitarian Open Street Map's http://hotosm.org/  relief efforts for this.
The Humanitarian Open Street Map Team applies the principles of open source
and open data sharing for humanitarian response and economic development.
These efforts are greatly helping relief efforts in Nepal
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32603870

I am especially grateful for the work and relief efforts being done by our
colleagues in Open Source Geospatial Lab at Kathmandu University  in these
challenging circumstances and may God help them to help others in need.

https://sites.google.com/a/ku.edu.np/opensourcegeospatial/
https://geospatiallab.wordpress.com

Two earthquakes in just over a fortnight in Nepal is a time for all of us
to think on how we all can contribute to better capacity building in
national/regional/local levels globally to help with not only relief
efforts but also be better prepared for  combating natural disasters from
earthquakes to flooding to landslides . Especially there is very limited
capacity in geospatial technologies  in developing countries as many of the
developing countries do not even have local capacity  or ability to buy
expensive properitory GIS software tools needed. That is why is it very
important that there is local capacity build in all countries using free
and open technologies and principles. So making geospatial education
opportunities assessible to all is key long term aim that we all should
work together.

Preparedness is key for managing these kind of disasters and capacity
building at  national, regional and local level is important and we need to
more engage with United Nations community for this. In 2012 and 2014 we
have organised hands on  workshop "Open Source GIS & WebMapping for UN
staff" in Vienna, Austria . It was organized on behalf of the Commission on
Open Source Geospatial Technologies of the International Cartographic
Association (ICA). Barend Kobben  (University of Twente) was the course
organisor for this.

http://kartoweb.itc.nl/kobben/SOMAP-OSGEO-workshop/  (2014 Workshop )
http://kartoweb.itc.nl/kobben/SOMAP-OSGEO-workshop/report2012.html  (2012
Workshop )

So i suggest as a community we plan the following actions:

1. We will need to expand these Open GIS and Open Data training programs
for UN staff globally. We should  build upon ideas from   International Map
Year (IMY) http://internationalmapyear.org activities led by the
International Cartographic Association (ICA) and supported by the United
Nations  with the aim to provide opportunities to  making and using maps
and geographic information to actually focus on this aspect of capacity
building also. It is important the capacity building is there at the local
level to make this effective.

2.  Planning ideas of getting students doing GIS programs in universities
worldwide to contribute to the Missing Maps projects of Humanitarian Open
Street Map Team  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Missing_Maps_Project
to help map the most vulnerable places in the developing world, in order
that international and local NGOs, and individuals can use the maps and
data to better respond to crises affecting the areas. It can be a hands on
exercise (one session minimum) as part of the GIS curriculum.

I got so many emails from lot of faculty worldwide who contributed to the
Nepal mapping efforts. A lecturer in Southern Methodist University, USA
(Jessie Zarazaga) emailed "Thank you  for sharing the opportunity to
participate. It pushed me into action, and we held a very successful Map-In
on Friday at the school of engineering.My students were proud to be able to
do even something small to help.And next time they will be even better
positioned to play their part."

Thank you Jessie Zarazaga for your mail . Your mail has inspired me to
think of actions for the long term and to ensure that we will be able to
train and develop  a new generation of cartographers and geographic
information scientists with the skills needed to take action globally.

All colleagues and volunteers who have contributed for the Humanitarian
Open Street Map Team's efforts are our "Geo for All" Heros.

Best wishes,

Suchith




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