[OSGeo-Discuss] Open Geospatial Science - how we made it possible starting from very humble beginnings

[Suchith Anand]

Dear colleagues,

Two week's back , as i was preparing a lecture on Open Geospatial Science for the Marie Curie MultiPos ITN Summer School here [1]  at University of Nottingham , i started reflecting on our Geo4All journey that we started from very humble beginnings and without any initial funding (Open Geospatial Science was just an idea many years back then) and it is 100 percent thanks to the combined efforts of like minded scientists and academics worldwide that helped make this dream a reality. The key ingredients that helped make Open Geospatial Science possible is Open Principles (open source geospatial software, open data, open standards, open educational resources and open access to research publications) .Thanks to our colleagues globally, we now have dedicated research labs, dedicated journals etc in place which has helped us to firmly establish Open Geospatial Science . We also have a vibrant scientific and academic community globally to help advance the discipline for the future.

It is this global research outlook that is fundamental to the success of any new discipline. Research projects come and go, individual research centers/groups within a single university are also transient (they keep merging/changing as staff members come and go ) but research disciplines and ideas will have always have longer impact. Hence from the start our aim was to work to create Open Geospatial Science as a discipline. We had to start following the idea taking one step at a time to make this possible and i want to share some of our experiences, so we can help build more ideas for our future expansion.

Open Geospatial Science is a good example of an idea which was made possible by the combined efforts of like minded scientists without any initial funding (initially we were laughed at by some properitary supporter folks as they could not imagine that we would be able to create even one research lab without any initial funding!) , but just with determination and focus in less than 4 years we build up over 100 research labs across the world and created firmly a new discipline of Open Geospatial Science (with new journals, books, dedicated research labs etc that our colleagues globally have now put in place).

I have shared some of my thoughts/ideas on our journey at http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/04/open-geospatial-science-2/

So my friends, i want to thank each one of you who made this possible and let us keep working with determination and focus. I am determined to work with you all to keep building up and expanding Open Geospatial Science.

Best wishes,

Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org/

[1] http://www.multi-pos.eu/






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