[OSGeo-Announce] First Australian Open Source Geospatial Laboratory to Support Smarter Cities will be built at the University of Melbourne

[Anne Ghisla]

The University of Melbourne will be home to Australia's first Open
Source Geospatial Laboratory. The laboratory will support urban
research and educational excellence through the use of location based
(geospatial) data and tools. 

The Laboratory will undertake research and provide training resources
which utilises digital data and analytical and visualisation tools to
up-skill a myriad of disciplines in evidenced based decision-making
practices. Training will be delivered both into existing University
curriculum and through a series of workshops and short-courses.  

The laboratory is expected to attract considerable interest from urban
geographers, spatial scientists, planners and policy-makers who are
keen to contribute to and learn about the latest available data driven
techniques to support evidenced based decision-making. The laboratory
will utilise the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network
(AURIN). AURIN is a $20 million open source e-infrastructure initiative
which is unlocking datasets of relevance to Australia’s cities and
providing an analytical toolkit to inform sustainable urban futures.  

The software used to support activities of the laboratory is open
source, meaning the source code can be modified and re-distributed
royalty and fee free. This open source geospatial laboratory is a joint
initiative of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and the
Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).  

The laboratory will see scientists and practitioners from the
International Cartographic Association (ICA) and the Open Source
Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) collaborate closely with University
colleagues.  This Australian facility will be part of a global network
of open geospatial research labs known as ICA-OSGeo labs. Currently
there are 22 ICA-OSGeo labs operating globally. Dr Christopher Pettit,
Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne, Victorian Chair of
the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) and Strategic
Implementation Co-ordinator of AURIN will lead the initiative. "The
University of Melbourne is one of the top research universities in the
world and has been a pioneer in Australian geospatial science
research,” said Professor Tom Kvan, Dean of the Faculty of
Architecture, Building and Planning. “We are delighted to collaborate
with the ICA and OSGeo to create this opportunity for our students and
researchers, which will encourage open geospatial teaching and related
research in other universities.”

The facility will open in Spring 2014.
 
Further Information: 

Dr Christopher Pettit
The University of Melbourne
Email: cpettit at unimelb.edu.au
Phone: +61 422 301 832

Dr Suchith Anand
University of Nottingham
Phone: +44 (0)115 84 32750
Email: suchith.anand at nottingham.ac.uk


OSGeo is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2006 whose mission is
to support and promote the collaborative development of open source
geospatial technologies and data. ICA is the world authoritative body
for cartography, the discipline dealing with the conception,
production, dissemination and study of maps.
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