[OSGeo-Discuss] AgriGIS ThinkTank Summary and welcoming Center for Agricultural Networking and Information Sharing (CANIS) , Kenya to GeoForAll

Suchith Anand Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk
Wed Nov 16 06:32:34 PST 2016 

Thank you Kiringai. I also fully agree on the need to bring together ideas to support RUFORUM [1] to develop the curriculum as the next step forward. We have many options to make this happen. I suggest that we explore the GODAN Capacity Building Working Group (as the focus is on Agriculture ) for more ideas and action plan for this . GeoForAll can also provide inputs for the curriculum from GIS side. I am ccing the GODAN Capacity Development WG so we all can work together and build synergies.

Isaura, Imma – may I request that you invite Kiringai for a telemeeting so we can discuss ideas further and build synergies with GODAN WG activities. Thanks.

I also request other colleagues to please come forward and provide your inputs/ideas . Thanks.

Best wishes,

Suchith

[1] http://www.ruforum.org


________________________________________
From: Kiringai Kamau <kiringai at gmail.com>
Sent: 16 November 2016 1:35 PM
To: Anand Suchith
Cc: discuss at lists.osgeo.org; geoforall at lists.osgeo.org; Prof. S.G. Kiama; Dr. John Mburu; Nampala, Paul; Ann Rose Mwangi; Dhairya Pujara; Muchiri Nyaggah
Subject: Re: AgriGIS ThinkTank Summary and welcoming Center for Agricultural Networking and Information Sharing (CANIS) , Kenya to GeoForAll

Happy GIS Day Suchith,

The GIS Think Tank is fired to do good for Africa. We want to grow our centralized data, more so if we can achieve this from a localized country data which mirrored can provide a huge database for what the AU and CAADP through the Malabo Declaration calls the evidence driven decision making.

With data, our decision making will be fast, efficient, effective and no doubts sustainable. We are taking the very first step of faith by working together. The 86+ university members of the RUFORUM will benefit from the combined thinking of this forum that is as rich as our combined resourcefulness. We now seek to tap from this and grow Africa's resourcefulness. Mapped, it will be the largest resource that makes all of us learn from what they can see rather than hearing of the same.

We need to take the first step of helping RUFORUM develop the curriculum so anyone with ideas where the financial support for RUFORUM can come so that they can call us together to think jointly on the curriculum, if the GODAN Capacity Building Working Group can organize an online curriculum thinking forum to create a framework that will guide what we do next, if they are slow and OSGeo wants to lead us to take the first baby steps on this...we at CANIS are willing to convene the thinking from an Africa perspective to ensure we follow closely and driven the agenda.

I am open to ideas on how we can move this agenda forward and would love if our mentor Suchith can throw some light on this.

Happy GIS Day to you all.

Kiringai

On Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 3:17 PM, Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>> wrote:
Dear Kiringai,

Thank you for these excellent updates. Your collaborations with RUFORUM to further accelerate open data on agriculture and nutrition by establishing a truly ICT4Ag driven degree program is truly remarkable. This will help make this benefit the whole Africa and wider world. I believe the time for Geo Spatial Driven Africa has arrived and this momentum created will bring long term benefits not only to Africa but to the wider world.

You and colleagues in Africa are now part of OSGeo -the world’s largest Geospatial ecosystem , so you have full access to the huge network of collaborators from governments, industry , universities, NGOs globally that you can connect  to  expand your programs rapidly . Open innovation is key in driving Digital Economy opportunities and we are determined to make sure that everyone benefits .

Open Data developments are exciting but what is the point of all these open data if we have to buy high cost properitery software licences to make use of the data. This is esp. big issue for colleagues in developing countries where cost is a big factor. So I really hope the short courses and curriculum you develop will have open principles at the core so that it is scaleable , sustainable and contribute to open innovation.

I wish you all the success and best wishes in your aim to creating a Geo Spatial Driven Africa which brings benefits for everyone.

Happy GIS Day 2016.

Best wishes,

Suchith


________________________________________
From: Kiringai Kamau <kiringai at gmail.com<mailto:kiringai at gmail.com>>
Sent: 11 November 2016 3:30 AM
To: Anand Suchith
Cc: discuss at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:discuss at lists.osgeo.org>; geoforall at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:geoforall at lists.osgeo.org>; Prof. S.G. Kiama; Dr. John Mburu; Nampala, Paul; Ann Rose Mwangi; Dhairya Pujara; Muchiri Nyaggah
Subject: Re: AgriGIS ThinkTank Summary and welcoming Center for Agricultural Networking and Information Sharing (CANIS) , Kenya to GeoForAll

Thanks Suchith for this!

We are excited about the possibilities that are slowly emerging from the potential of creating a Geo Spatial Driven Africa. Since our ThinkTank Forum, we are discussing with Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) and a number of other partners on how we can make data driven decision making the focus of the next step in creating knowledge for the African Food Sector.

RUFORUM is therefore collaborating with CANIS to evolve a truly ICT4Ag driven degree programme that will be adopted by the 80+ members of the forum to also drive the open data on agriculture and nutrition. We have negotiated a proposal with the IDRC to support the financial support to launch this initiative, but are looking for other partners so that this effort can move faster to realization.

Our thinking is that we should have the curriculum formulation going on as we try and evolve the research domains that IDRC is keen in supporting. The financial support to the Think Tank Secretariat is currently being supported by CANIS, VACID Africa and Y-Center Africa. We intend to run a number of other short courses in Design Thinking and Innovation on the use of Open Data for the Transformation of Agriculture  (ODATA) in Africa which we are currently evolving with Y-Center. Details of this will emerge as we evolve the programme. Anyone who knows institutions that we can work with is free to introduce the same to us so that we reach out to them.

The university of Nairobi has taken lead in adopting the Geospatial coordination perspectives of CANIS and is centralizing all its GeoSpatial Operations from a centralized server that has been dedicated to the model behind what came out of the Think Tank deliberations. Ms. Ann Rose Mwangi <arosemwangi at gmail.com<mailto:arosemwangi at gmail.com><mailto:arosemwangi at gmail.com<mailto:arosemwangi at gmail.com>>> is the linkage person on the coordination of the secretariat.

We look forward to inviting you all in the launch of the ODATA Programme once a date has been granted by the VC of the University of Nairobi on a date to be communicated soon.

We are and shall always remain at your disposal.

Sincerely,

Kiringai Kamau

On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 11:50 PM, Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk><mailto:Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>>> wrote:
Dear All,

We are pleased to send you the summary updates from the very successful AgriGIS Workshop & Think Tank meetings in Nairobi organised jointly by the The University of Nottingham, the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) and Crops for the Future (CFF) on October 27-28, 2016.

The objective of the event was to provide a forum for stakeholders in agricultural research organizations in Africa to share knowledge and propose strategies on improving the use of  open data, open educational resources , free and open geospatial software with the aim to expand Capacity Building and Training in AgriGIS to support Global Food Security.

The slides of the event  are at  http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/grace/events/agrigis-kenya-slides.aspx

We thank all the participants for their inputs and contributions for the Think-Tank discussions which covered the following themes (details to the summary of each theme are available at the event website)


  *   Big challenges for Agriculture in the African context
  *   Tools (known & wish list) used for agri using satellite/remote data collection
  *   Existing or potential data sets we would like to use
  *   Practical, technical, policy, impementation obstacles to Location aspects/geotechnologies for agri
  *   Data and Modelling


There was interest and support from  participants for the need for Open Data in Agriculture and  initiatives like GODAN [1].

Some of the key themes that emerged  from the Think Tank discussions were  the following


  *   Importance of the need of an organisation locally to facilitate and ensure sustainability of AgriGIS
  *   Spearheading open data and free and open software use for cost savings, expanding innovation and sustainability
  *   Need for Capacity building among stakeholders

We are getting lot of emails of interest lot of colleagues in Africa expressing interest in follow up activities. We are pleased to inform that Center for Agricultural Networking and Information Sharing (CANIS) , Kenya has volunteered to  host the secretariat for the Think Tank  for developing as a focal point for interaction with other stakeholders on Open GIS and open data and keep building the ideas from the ThinkTank. We thank Kiringai Kamau and colleagues at CANIS for their support.  Please contact Kiringai (email  - kiringai at gmail.com<mailto:kiringai at gmail.com><mailto:kiringai at gmail.com<mailto:kiringai at gmail.com>>  ) for expanding AgriGIS momentum in Kenya. We are also pleased to welcome CANIS as our new GeoforAll lab in Kenya.


It is good to see many blogposts from participants of the workshop such as the one at GEOSYMP  http://geosymp.com/2016/10/what-happened-at-the-agrigis-workshop-and-think-tank/


We would like to specifically thank our hosts RCMRD ( Dr Hussein Farah and all colleagues) for their excellent organisation and arrangements including the hands on workshop .  We need to also make use of the community and momentum build by the ThinkTank for expanding future collaborations and make sure the community is kept  updated. Please make use of the  Twitter  created  to share your ideas https://twitter.com/hashtag/agrigisnr2016?f=tweets&vertical=default&src=hash


We  shared some examples of research at Nottingham at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/genius/documents/egrasp-nairobi.pdf

We are hoping to keep building the collaborations in AgriGIS to  support Global Food Security.

Best wishes,

Suchith

[1] http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/genius/documents/godan-uon-intro.pdf



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