[OSGeo-Discuss] Fwd: Season's greetings (ICA-OSGeo Lab Network)

[Jeff McKenna]

Dear All,



As 2013 is nearly over, let me 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"* http://www.geoforall.org/   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 I would like to thank you
for your continued contribution.



I remember reading the Google Oxera report in the start of this year
(Jan 2013) that estimated 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. Details at

http://www.oxera.com/Oxera/media/Oxera/downloads/reports/What-is-the-economic-impact-of-Geo-services_1.pdf




It clearly showed the excellent progress made by GIS and its significant
contribution to jobs creation and digital economy. There was also a
table listing the use of GIS in higher education (Table 5.2 ; Page 23)
which clearly showed that very few universities in developing countries
were currently running courses in GIS.  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.
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 (without
having to pay proprietary GIS vendors). In order to achieve UN
Millennium Development Goals (in particular Goal 7) on themes like
environmental sustainability, it is essential to provide free and open
source geospatial tools to universities, government organisations etc in
developing countries for helping them achieve these targets. Free and
Open source GIS provides accessibility, low cost solutions and lowers
the entry barriers for the use of geospatial technologies for all.



Today morning we 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
http://www.unige.ch/envirospace  at the University of Geneva. I
understand that they are also part of UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva
http://www.grid.unep.ch   (we already have UNEP Warsaw
http://www.gridw.pl/  in our network , so it is good to see more
collaborations developing at UN organisations).



Thank you to all of you, we have now put strong foundations for our
*"Geo for All"* initiative from Australia to Uruguay and i am looking
forward to working with you all in 2014 to rapidly build upon this. I
also request all established labs to also help other universities in
your region to establish Open Source Geospatial Labs as a new year
resolution and be the ambassador of the initiative in your regions/country.



I wish you and your families very happy holidays and Happy New Year.



Best wishes,



Suchith