[Ica-osgeo-labs] Launch of Earth Observation Open Science

[Suchith Anand]

The first Earth Observation Open Science 2.0 conference, organised by ESA, explored and discussed the emerging challenges and opportunities faced by the Earth observation scientific community, with the objective of gathering feedback on new trends and practices by next-generation scientists. Open tools and software, data-intensive science, virtual research environment, citizen science, advanced visualisation, e-learning and education of the new generation of data scientists were covered at this Community Consultation Meeting at ESA’s centre in Frascati, Italy last week (12–14 October)

Details at http://m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Launch_of_Earth_observation_open_science_2.0

It was also a really great opportunity for me and colleagues to share ideas of our OpenCitySmart - The Open platform for Smart Cities  [1]   based on open principles to the wider community. Special thanks to Patrick Hogan (NASA)  and his colleagues for their tremendous work which made this possible.

It is a sad fact that even today with all these scientific advancements , billions of people  in cities in developing/ poor countries worldwide do not have access to even basic facilities and urban infrastructure development is key for eradicating extreme poverty and improving the standard of life for citizens globally. I esp. see opportunities now for cities in the developing/poor countries to also get the tools needed (without having to pay huge licensing costs) to develop the  infrastructures  to help improve the quality of life of people everywhere.

We must learn to be more efficient along with being more effective. To most wisely achieve this goal, we need a more collective approach to problem-solving. Many, if not most of the challenges facing the cities of today are quite similar in nature, if not identical, from infrastructure management to essential public services. Why must each city solve these problems alone? If the cities of the world were to share solutions with each other, they could each focus on different parts of the problem and thereby only bear the burden for a small fraction of the load. And by working together we may come to better appreciate what we share in common as well as experience the joy being able to help each other.

This vision of this OpenCitySmart   for cities to collectively develop functionalities they could all share and build upon is very powerful. This would allow cities to come closer together for their mutual interest, save an extraordinary amount of money, help improve the quality of life  of citizens worldwide and certainly advance the cause for world peace and shared prosperity.

Thanks again to Maria Brovelli, Patrick Hogan, Chris Pettit and all our colleagues in OpenCitySmart thematic for all their help which made this possible and it will be great boost for our future work.

Best wishes,

Suchith


[1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Opencitysmart
[2] http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2015/07/launch-of-opencitysmart-the-open-platform-for-smart-cities/




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