[OSGeo-Announce] Open Source Geospatial Research and Education Lab established at the Czech Technical University in Prague

[Frank Warmerdam]

We are pleased to announce the establishment of Open Source Geospatial Research 
and Education (OSGeoREL) Laboratory in the Czech Republic at the Faculty of 
Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague. The laboratory is one 
of the members of a worldwide network developed under the auspices of the 
ICA-OSGeo Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

In 2011, the International Cartographic Association (ICA) signed a Memorandum 
of Understanding (MoU) with the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) with 
a view to develop global collaboration opportunities for academia, industry and 
government organisations in the field of open source GIS software and data. The 
MoU aims to provide expertise and support for the establishment of Open Source 
Geospatial Laboratories and Research Centres across the world to support the 
development of open source geospatial software technologies, training and 
expertise. Details at http://www.osgeo.org/node/1230

OSGeoREL at the CTU in Prague is led by Martin Landa, Department of Mapping and 
Cartography. The laboratory is devoted to education in geoinformatics using 
FOSS4G, and to research in open source software development for geospatial 
applications. Martin Landa is an OSGeo charter member since 2011 and a member 
of the GRASS Development Team since 2006. He is actively involved in the GRASS 
project as the lead architect of graphical user interface (GUI) development and 
PostGIS integration in GRASS vector architecture.

Geoinformatics at the CTU in Prague: Prof. Aleš Čepek has established a study 
program in geoinformatics since 2005 (originally with Prof. Leoš Mervart), he 
is the author of project GNU Gama and of a minor project GNU Sqltutor (both 
hosted at GNU servers) and the editor in chief of Geoinformatics FCE CTU journal.

More details of the lab at http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/osgeorel