[OSGeo-Announce] First Anniversary edition of our Geo4All Newsletter and invitation to be our GeoAmbassador

[Jorge Sanz]

We are pleased to announce the first year anniversary of our GeoforAll
Newsletter (this is our twelfth issue). On behalf of the GeoforAll
community, I would like to thank  Nikos Lambrinos (Chief Editor) and
our wonderful team of co-editors Rizwan Bulbul, Pavel Kikin, Alexey
Kolesnikov, Rania Elsayed, Elżbieta Wołoszyńska-Wiśniewska, Antoni
Perez Navaro, Emma Strong, Sergio Acosta Y Lara and  production
designer Nikos Voudrislis  for their selfless dedication and volunteer
efforts  which made this possible. This newsletter has been an amazing
instrument to share information and ideas with the wider geocommunity
and also highlight and honour the contributions of our excellent
colleagues from across the world. Details at
http://www.geoforall.org/newsletters/

This newsletter is a community initiative run by the community for the
community. We welcome all community members to contribute and share
their updates to the newsletter for the benefit of the wider geo
community. We have made 'Open Principles' as the key guideline for all
articles. Relevant updates and information on free and open software,
open data, open standards, open education resources are all welcome
for future editions. It has been a learning curve for all of us, and
we request you all to help us on this initiative.

We have great pleasure in introducing Professor Georg Gartner as our
GeoAmbassador for this first Anniversary edition of our Geo4All
Newsletter. More information at
http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/07/geoambassodor-professor-georg-gartner/

So how can you contribute to enable geospatial education opportunities
to all ? Everyone who is interested in enabling geospatial education
opportunities to all are our GeoAmbassadors. It is not just the
thousands of OSGeo members but also thousands of colleagues in ICA,
ISPRS, UCGIS, AGILE, GSDI, AGS  who all work for Geoeducation
opportunities for all who are our GeoAmbassadors. Geo for All is a
world wide movement that provides immediate benefit to the world.

Share the free and open educational resources and software that are
available from OSGeo Live to MapStory to Teacher Training resources
(developed thanks to the contributions to thousands of volunteers) all
available free and open to all at http://www.geoforall.org/training/
to colleagues globally and be our GeoAmbassadors.

Also it is our great pleasure to introduce our colleagues at SIGTE,
University of Girona [1] , Spain, as our “Geo4All” lab of the month.
One of the founder labs of the Geo for All initiative, SIGTE has been
contributing immensely to our teaching, research, and service
activities. SIGTE colleagues have been the pioneers of a very
successful summer school program dedicated to free and open geographic
information software and aimed at promoting the use and development of
free geospatial solutions and empowering students. Details are
available at http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/07/geo4all-lab-of-the-month-sigte-university-of-girona-spain/

We thank Gemma Boix, Lluís Vicens, Gemma Pons, Rosa Olivella, Ferran
Orduña,Toni Hernandez, Alexandre Busquets, Josep Sitjar, Laura Olivas
and all colleagues and students at SIGTE lab for their contributions
to the Geo4All initiative and look forward to working and building
more collaborations with all interested on this education mission.

Share the power of Geographic Information that SIGTE developed
https://vimeo.com/22069904  This is a wonderful introductory video
that can be used by all colleagues globally to promote GIS at all
levels  . The final sentence in the video is “In the not so distant
future, it is hoped that GIS will help us build a better and more
efficient society for all” – This is exactly why we are all working on
Geo4All…

The contributions of SIGTE colleagues is a good example of our
philosophy and why we are working on Geo4All at
http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/07/sharing-is-caring-why-openness-is-key-for-true-empowerment-and-sustainability/

Let us work together work together to support open principles in
education and enable Geo technologies in empowering communities and
helping improving the Quality of Life and standards of living for
everyone. Let us all work together to help create a world that is more
accessible, equitable and full of innovation and opportunities for
everyone.

Happy Anniversary to all.

Best wishes,

Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org/