[Ica-osgeo-labs] "Geo for All" education mission is now launched

[Suchith Anand]

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for contacting Sol's daughters and that is excellent . We all will be from next year celebrating  "Geo for All" day on 3rd August (Sol Katz birthday) . It will be the OSGeo day and fitting tribute to one of the great geospatial pioneers and very appropriate for our " Geo for All" Education mission as it encapsulates the core values of sharing and providing education opportunities for all irrespective of their economic background. High cost proprietary GIS has been the biggest limiting factor for widening geospatial education and providing geospatial job opportunities esp. for poor people and regions of our planet.  This is not acceptable to us. 

We will plan many activities and initiatives for the "Geo for All" Day. The whole OSGeo community , all the universities in the ICA-OSGeo labs network (40 + universities to start with) as well as all other interested universities, colleges, schools , industry, government organisations and any one interested will use the "Geo for All" day to organise workshops, seminars, distribute OSGeo Live DVDs or simply talk and reach out to others. Everyone using open source geospatial software will get opportunity to celebrate "Geo for All" day. This will also add momentum to our plans to  have over 50 OSGeo labs established in universities in Africa alone by 2015 and they will all be  teaching GIS courses to hundreds of students there. 

All ideas from everyone welcome on how we can plan activities etc to celebrate "Geo for All" day. Once we have our new "Geo for All" website ready (Jason and Southampton colleagues are working hard on it), we will announce the "Geo for All" day together with the launch of our new website. Over years it will add momentum to our education efforts.

Suchith

________________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jeff McKenna [jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com]
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2013 4:38 PM
To: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] "Geo for All" education mission is now launched

Hi Suchith,

Regarding the "Geo for All" education mission, during FOSS4G 2013 we
spoke in person about possibly having a "Geo for All" day, one day a
year, to celebrate/promote FOSS4G in education.  We discussed using Sol
Katz's birthday as a possible day for this.  This morning I heard back
from one of Sol's daughters (response below).  I think this is a great
idea, to promote FOSS on his birthday!

(we might want to incorporate the hawaiian shirts and silly hats idea
into our Geo for All theme, in his honor as well)

-jeff




****
His birthday was August 3rd, 1947.

As a side note, he also loved Hawaiian shirts and silly hats if you'd
ever want to tie that in.

Thanks so much for all you do and for thinking of him!

Shanna
****

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