[OSGeo-Discuss] The first “hard copy” steps for the Farma Valley (Tuscany) community map

Wed May 3 22:17:37 PDT 2017

Dear Patrick,

Many thanks for your comments and ideas!

My apologies for not answering earlier, in the midst of a bunch of
activities related to the issues I presented.

As an overarching issue: it may help to consider that we are a very small
organization, operating in a rural area.

We have what I would consider -comparing to other organizations I interact
with- a pretty good "glocal" vision of things to do (
http://www.pibinko.org/places) but our current resources are quite limited,
again comparing to other organizations we see doing similar things.

This leads to (a) being extremely cautious to not overcommit and (b)
keeping several ideas which we develop on a side, as we want to avoid
launching ideas when we are not ready to deliver them in projects.
We might have ideas which get sketched to a preliminary design phase, and
then we keep them "warm" until the right conditions develop...this is not
because we are slow...but because we made a point in doing what we do from
an area which is not the typical ICT district, and so we started with a
significant handicap. To give you an idea: in 2012 I worked as a citizen
science coordinator in this area, and I  was navigating at 24 Kb/s from
certain sites where I needed to be, due to the poor mobile coverage. Things
have improved since, but we are far from the level of service other labs
"in town have" (on the other end: we have other "up sides" that our urban
colleagues appreciate a lot when they visit us).

In fact, the community map data set was finalized in the Spring of 2015,
and the project was presented at an international conference in September,
the same year, but we found the right conditions to publish it in December
2016.
You can still check out the 2015 version of this on
http://attivarti.org/valledelfarma/welcome/   (among other material, there
are five video interviews which are interesting:
http://attivarti.org/valledelfarma/category/interviews/)

This said...please see below

Andrea Giacomelli
http://www.pibinko.org
info at pibinko.org
+39 331 7539228 <+39%20331%20753%209228>
P. IVA: 01582480537

2017-04-30 20:52 GMT+02:00 Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX) <patrick.hogan at nasa.gov>:

> Andrea,
>
> This is a brilliant idea! How about putting up a web page that let
> tourists and others know exactly how they can contribute and how precious
> their participation is.
>

In the past years we have been working on how to encourage contributions of
this type, for example in our BuioMetria Partecipativa project
<http://www.buiometriapartecipativa.org/> (participatory night sky quality
monitoring).

An issue we have encountered with this is that tourists, given the nature
they assume in their time off their life at home, might be enticed by
casual participation, or by an outreach event, but then may not be really
committed to work with us beyond this level, so it not so interesting to
invest in attracting them specifically.
On the other hand, tourists who will visit our surroundings and note our
activities, will expose a direct motivation and we will be very glad of
interacting with them ...this has happened already in several occasions,
with mutual satisfaction.

Concerning "others" we are primarily interested in university students,
plus professionals of specific market segments and we have in fact being
engaging them already, but we are always open to new options in this
respect.

for the 2017 "season" of our series, we are planning four events with a
monthly frequency starting in June, in order to refine the map, and with
the tourists arriving we will surely set up something for them as well.

> I might also suggest getting the word out to High Schools too! Those
> students would love to become part of this communal effort. Maybe with some
> recognition for the school that does the most.
>

Yes, this makes sense. by the way: "the word" goes out anyway, since we
always advertize the news you occasionally received on OSGEO discuss also
via press releases etc.

The hard part of this is that the closest high schools are 45 km away, and
the teens living in the hamlets are in low numbers on students in or closer
to the main cities tend to stick to initiatives in their neighborhoods.

Still: if a High School would like to "play", we are here.

If there is something you think NASA can do to help, let me know.
>

you are tempting me...I will share your offer with our steering board and
will let you know

in fact: in 2011 I was invited at a NASA/EU JRC workshop to brainstorm on
"socioeconomic benefits of Earth observation"
I will go back to the presentation I gave there and check if some of the
action items I proposed, which were in the line of things we are doing now,
might be applicable.

> -Patrick
>
>
>
> P.S.: ESA has standardized on Web World Wind.
>
> So building an interface with that might be fun and easily integrate
> Copernicus/Sentinel data!
>
> By way of example for ease of development, here are some web apps,
>
> built by pairs of NASA Interns in less than two-months!
>
> And they hadn’t written a line of JavaScript before their summer here.
>
> https://github.com/NASAWorldWindResearch
>

We have a capacity building issue here: not many hackers, or people willing
to learn to code in our rural surroundings, as far as I can see (and I do a
lot of scouting).

We actually have some very young interns in May, but not for coding...the
call for collaborations is always open (I keep repeating this to any FOSS4G
event I attend), and we are glad of evaluating joint projects.

>
>
> And ESA apps using ESA-NASA Web World Wind:
>
>
>
>
> May the FOSS be with you!
>

initially I was replying "rock'n'roll!", but then I fetched this song
by Giorgio
Gaber <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Gaber>, a
 composer/singer/performer , very famous in Italy, with his song about
freedom, dated 1972, and made a quick and dirty translation of the lyrics:
http://www.pibinko.org/pib/?p=5046

...I hadn't been listening to it for a long time, and I can say it matches
your wish and has some keywords that are part of the FOSS4G environment as
I understand it.

Un saluto!

Andrea Giacomelli
http://www.pibinko.org

>
>
> *From:* Discuss [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] *On Behalf Of *Andrea
> Giacomelli
> *Sent:* Sunday, April 30, 2017 3:01 AM
> *To:* OSGeo Discussions
> *Subject:* [OSGeo-Discuss] The first “hard copy” steps for the Farma
> Valley (Tuscany) community map
>
> Hi,
>
> As an update following the Apr. 7 ASPRS/GeoforAll webinar
> <http://www.pibinko.org/the-recording-of-the-webinar-of-open-source-geomatics-environment-and-music-from-southern-tuscany/>,
> please see:
>
>
>
> http://www.pibinko.org/the-first-hard-copy-steps-for-the-far
> ma-valley-tuscany-community-map/
>
>
>
> By the way: if you are planning vacations or business travel in central
> Italy (let's say a triangle defined by Florence, Rome and the Tuscan coast)
> and are interested to see the "ground truth" part of the project - or
> actually become part of it, let me know!
>
>
>
> Best regards!
>
> Andrea Giacomelli
> http://www.pibinko.org
> info at pibinko.org
> +39 331 7539228 <+39%20331%20753%209228>
>
> P. IVA: 01582480537
>
>
>
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