[OSGeo-Announce] Launch of ICA-OSGeo Lab in India at AGSE 2013 and Season's Greetings from "Geo for All" Initiative

[Anne Ghisla]

We are pleased to inform that the ICA-OSGeo Lab  was launched  at CEPT
University, Ahmedabad, India on the concluding day of the AGSE 2013
conference [0], on 19th December 2013. This Laboratory is part of the
international ICA-OSGeo Open Source Geospatial Labs Network [1]. The
aim of this worldwide network is to provide on global basis
collaboration opportunities for academia, industry and government
organizations in open source GIS software and data based on the
Memorandum of Understanding [2] of the International Cartographic
Association (ICA) and the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).
The aim of ICA-OSGeo "Geo for All" initiative is to bring more
opportunities for geospatial education worldwide. 

Dr. Anjana Vyas, chair of AGSE 2013 conference and Professor CEPT
University, gave an overview about the future plans of Open Source Geo
Lab at CEPT University, India and launched the website [3]. Photos of
the event are at [4] [5]. Guest speakers contributed to the
discussions at the launch event. Dr. D Schroeder (HFT Stuttgart) gave
his views on the benefits of open source and explained about its
success stories in the field of Information Technology. He also added
that the philosophy behind open source development is the importance of
freedom to use the software. Dr. FJ Behr (HFT Stuttgart) gave a talk
on open source in the context of GIS and the need to promote it. He
included in his presentation about the OSGeo foundation, its mission,
goals and its activities on a global scale and local scale. As Head of
the first ICA-OSGeo Laboratory in Germany he outlined the work and
importance of the OSGeo Foundation. M. G Koenig (TU Berlin) presented
the power of the open CityGML standard as an example to visualize 3D
data to support management and development of cities. He provided city
GML as an example of open consensus driven OGC standard. 

We congratulate Prof. Anjana Vyas and her team at CEPT University for
leading the establishment of  Open Source Geospatial Lab in India and
working to provide opportunities for staff and students to learn the
latest geospatial technologies. We are sure more universities in India
will establish OSGeo labs and create geospatial education programs  to
help to provide the supply of skilled labour that is needed to meet the
requirements of Geo industry and drive the digital economy.

Google Oxera's report on the economic impact of Geo Services report
[6] published in January 2013  estimates the revenues from global Geo
services at $150 billion to $270 billion per year. This study is one of
the first to consider Geo services as an industry in itself,
encompassing all digital mapping and location-based services. It
clearly shows the potential for thousands of skilled jobs being created
by GIS. But unfortunately, the number of universities offering GIS
programs in developing countries is very low and hence developing
countries have been lagging behind in benefiting from the opportunities
created by the global geo services. This is very disappointing that so
many staff and students in the developing and poor countries and
regions in our planet not having access to this rapidly growing area
and we needed to take action so that everyone can study and benefit
from geospatial opportunities. High cost proprietary GIS software
packages are unaffordable for majority of users in developing and poor
countries and has been a big stumbling block for developing and poor
countries to take advantage of the immense opportunities provided by
GIS technologies. Hence our "Geo for All" initiative is very timely as
by using free and open source based GIS will help in the spreading
geospatial education among the economically disadvantaged people and
countries (removing the need for high cost proprietary GI vendor
softwares). Free and Open source GIS provides accessibility, low cost
solutions and lowers the entry barriers for the use of geospatial
technologies for all.Our key aim is to make it possible for students in
developing and poor countries to be also able to get geospatial
education.  

On the same day (19th Dec) we also welcomed our 64th ICA-OSGeo lab at
the University of Geneva. Big welcome to Dr. Gregory Giuliani,
Prof.Anthony Lehmann, Dr.Nicolas Ray and colleagues at Institute for
Environmental Sciences [7] at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.  

As 2013 is nearly over, we take this opportunity to thank each and
every one of you for your support and contributions which helped to
build up the "Geo for All" initiative. It has been amazing to see our
humble initiative grow rapidly and this has been due to the dedication
of all of you and we would like to thank you for your continued
contribution. We have now put strong foundations for our "Geo for All"
initiative from Australia to Uruguay and we are  looking forward to
working with you all in 2014 to rapidly build upon this. On behalf of
everyone at "Geo for All" initiative, we wish you and your families
very happy holidays and Happy New Year.

[0] http://agse2013-cept.in 
[1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/MOU_ICA
[2] http://www.geoforall.org
[3] http://www.geomaticsindia-cept.org
[4] https://docs.google.com/a/cept.ac.in/file/d/0Bw-0H_COGuskMm0wbHF1RDYtRVE/edit?pli=1
[5] https://docs.google.com/a/cept.ac.in/file/d/0Bw-0H_COGuskNEpvZEc5SDBXVWc/edit?pli=1
[6] http://www.oxera.com/Oxera/media/Oxera/downloads/reports/What-is-the-economic-impact-of-Geo-services_1.pdf
[7] http://www.unige.ch/envirospace 

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