[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Slides

[Brent Wood]

 HI Michele,
An approach I've used in the past for similar presentations is to introduce the phrase "Democratisation of GIS"
It helps that I'm old enough to remember the evolution of wordprocessing as a technology, and use it as an analogy.
Go back to the invention of typewriters - people who wanted a business letter professionally laid out either dictated the content to a shorthand typist, or scribbled out some double spaced lines of text & gave them that. So we had a team of professional typists providing a skilled technical service to an organisation. Much like cartographers used to.
Along came wardrobe sized word processors & your typists became word processing operators, providing a similar service but with more advanced technology to help them. Like the early GIS practitioners creating computer generated maps instead of hand crafted ones. 

Then personal computers came along with word processing software - anyone could DIY word process, even if they were not as skilled or knowledgeable as the expert. No expensive hardware, expensive software, etc.  
There are 4 requirements for functional GIS: 
  suitable software, 
  a powerful enough computer to run it,  access to relevant data to use with it,  and standards to enable interoperability.  

Open Source GIS has introduced similar access to the world of GIS, no longer do you need to spend several times the cost of your computer for the software (and keep on paying)Open Data provides access to data from local to national to global scales, at the minimal cost of downloading it over the internet,
Your average used laptop of 5 years ago has more than enough power (or often can have simply by adding a memory module), even every smart phone has a GPS in it.
OGC has created, and is still creating, global standards for data formats, data access, data sharing which enables the interoperability. 

It is very unusual for anyone to hire wordprocessor operators any more - most people who can use a computer do their own. Similarly, anyone can use Open Source GIS software, GIS is no longer the domain of a few experts using expensive hardware & software. Hence - the Democratisation of GIS.
I run short workshops for small community groups & NGO's on DIY GIS using Open Source. They can't afford commercial licences for data or software but can make good use of free stuff.

 Cheers,
Brent

    On Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 11:51:16 AM GMT+12, Michele M Tobias via Discuss <discuss at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:  
 
  
Hi everyone!
 
I got asked to give a talk at the Monterey Bay Marine GIS Users Group meeting about the open source geospatial organizations – OSGeo, FOSS4G, OGC, etc. – and how they fit together. Has anyone got some slides or previous talks I could use as a reference to get started?  I feel like the board might have some useful stuff, but I’m not finding it. Any help would be appreciated.
 
  
 
Thanks!
 
  
 
Michele
 
  
 
Michele Tobias, PhD
 
Geospatial Data Specialist
 
DataLab: Data Science & Informatics
 
UC Davis Library 
 
  
 
370 Shields Library
 
(530)752-7532
 
mmtobias at ucdavis.edu
 
ORCID: 0000-0002-2954-8710
 
  
 
Pronouns: she, her, hers
 
  
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