[OSGeo-Edu] Funding opportunity/proposal

[Tyler Mitchell]

Hello everybody,
Franck Martin is writing a proposal that could turn into an  
opportunity to get (indirectly) a small bit of funding for a FOSS GIS/ 
RS book.  It is still only a proposal and there are some geographic  
constraints on who can use the funding - in this case it would need  
to be authors from the Asia/Pacific region.

Franck would oversee the production/editing of the work and all the  
contractual side of the work and funding (Franck, correct me if I'm  
wrong).  We could help him make a call for authors to find  
contributors and also help monitor the work or suggest improvements  
as the writing develops.  Authors would receive a small remuneration  
(scale of remuneration still being considered but likely around  
$1,000) for their work on a chapter.  Each chapter would cover a  
theme like GIS, Remote Sensing, Web Mapping, etc.

The results will be available through creative commons attribution  
license, so there will be a way we could copy/reuse in the future  
toward any OSGeo volume.  The final work will also be printed in book  
form (as well as online), which is also a real encouragement for  
future contributors and updates.  I would like to see Franck be able  
to say that he has OSGeo support to put in the proposal and having  
support from this committee would ensure that he can say this.

Personally, I strongly support this idea.  I see any funding as a  
critical step to getting the curriculum started and bringing FOSS GIS/ 
RS to a larger audience.

Could others on this list and others on this committee give a thumbs  
up (or +1) to the general idea so he could put OSGeo's name as a  
partner in the proposal?


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Franck works as an ICT Specialist at http://www.sopac.org/tiki/tiki- 
index.php, leading development (GeoCMS), training and application of  
open source technologies.

Below are details about the organisation he is proposing to:

http://www.iosn.net/
"Welcome to the International Open Source Network an initiative of  
the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Asia Pacific  
Development Information Programme (APDIP) and supported by the  
International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada."

It will fall into the FOSS Primer category:
http://www.iosn.net/publications/foss-primers
That also has a list of other primers that have been produced.