[Ica-osgeo-labs] GeoforAll Newsletter and First “GeoForAll” lab of the month - Open Source Geospatial Lab , Kathmandu University, Nepal

Sat Aug 1 02:52:11 PDT 2015

Great news,

thank you, dear editors, for your work - the newsletter is definitely a
valuable source of information, that timely updates us on the most
important.

2015-08-01 2:29 GMT+03:00 Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> We are very happy to inform that the first Geo4All newsletter is now ready
> at
> http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Newsletter-vol.-1-no.-1.pdf
>
> Our sincere thanks to Dr. Nikos Lambrinos (Aristotle University of
> Thessaloniki, Greece) for taking the initiative to start newsletter for
> GeoforAll and being the chief editor and his excellent team for making this
> newsletter possible. Thank you to Antoni, Ela, Emma, Sergio, Rizwan, Pavel,
> Alexey and Nikos for their help for the newsletter.
>
> Thanks to the hardwork of our amazing colleagues and support from ICA,
> OSGeo, ISPRS ,  we have been growing rapidly (with over 100 Labs), it is
> timely that we have our newsletter to share the many developments, events,
> activities etc from all members. It is also our great pleasure to use this
> opportunity to highlight the contributions of one lab in each newsletter
> issue to help all of us learn more about our members, share ideas and build
> collaborations for the future.
>
> It is my great pleasure, to introduce our colleagues at the Open Source
> Geospatial Lab , Kathmandu University, Nepal [1],[2] as our first
> “GeoForAll” lab of the month. We are especially grateful for the work and
> relief efforts done (and still doing) after the terrible earthquakes by our
> colleagues in Kathmandu University lead by Dr Shashish Maharjan in these
> challenging circumstances and may God help them to help others in need.
> Their whole team along with many students and volunteers were key in
> helping the recovery efforts.
>
> Our focus in addition to Universities and Higher Education is also on
> "Teacher Training programs" and accelerating the establishment of small
> GeoForAll labs (with access to internet) even in the poorest and remotest
> schools worldwide to enable quality education opportunities for all. These
> "GeoForAll" labs (tablets or low cost hardware based) in addition to help
> teach geoeducation will be help bring quality teaching and learning
> opportunities for all. Technology is a big leveller and enabler for the
> poorer sections of the society to also be part of the global economy and we
> should not allow creation of artificial barriers (being forced to buy high
> cost proprietary software) to deny this opportunity for the bottom
> billions. It is their right to also be part of the digital opportunities.
>
> One of the important decisions made at Como meeting during FOSS4G 2015
> Europe was to welcome Governments, Industry, SME's, NGOs etc who support
> GeoForAll's education mission and criteria to join us as "Partners", so we
> have global network of Open Geospatial Science Research and Education
> ‘Labs’ and ‘Partners’ to expand more collaborations for the future. We will
> bring together all key players (Government organizations, Industry, SMEs,
> NGOs) on the common mission of education and opportunities for all.
>
> In spite of all the economic & technological developments, it is a sad
> fact that thousands of schools globally (esp. in developing countries) even
> today do not have access to even a single computer. Many of these poor
> schools do not even have a proper library.  I am confident if we keep
> focus, we can achieve the target to enable digital education opportunities
> (tablets or low cost hardware based) in many of the poorest schools
> globally in just 10 years time and having this partnership with
> universities, governments, Industry, SMEs and NGOs is key for this. So even
> if till now many of these schools did not have access to any proper library
> or other learning resources, they will now have access to the best digital
> education resources available globally from wikipedia to MOOCs.
>
> Thanks to the unique convergence of some key developments (hardware costs
> will keep decreasing, internet access will keep increasing even in
> developing and poor countries, availability of free and open source
> software, open education resources etc.), we are in the first time in
> history truly have a real opportunity for making quality education
> opportunities accessible for all. I have seen this already happening even
> in some poor government schools in rural India and also many examples in
> our GeoForAll community from gvSIG Batovi in Uruguay [3] to GIS at Schools
> [4] etc, has proved that it is possible if we have the will power and
> determination.
>
> I am fully confident that if we are able to focus and bring together the
> amazing energies and reach of the wider community for our education
> mission, it will be game changer not just for Geoeducation but for the
> wider Education also. Access to quality education and opportunities is key
> for getting rid of extreme poverty and enable broadly shared prosperity for
> all.
>
>
>                       Education + Empowerment = Geo4All
>
> GeoForAll [5] aims to welcome ideas from the wider community on how we can
> work together for building global synergies and collaborations for enabling
> this even for the poorest and remotest schools worldwide to enable quality
> education opportunities for all.
>
> We look forward to working and building collaborations with all interested
> on this education mission.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Suchith
>
>
> [1] https://sites.google.com/a/ku.edu.np/opensourcegeospatial/
> [2] https://geospatiallab.wordpress.com
> [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orwN9K07XPo
> [4] http://www.edugis.pl/en/images/stories/guide/gis-at-school.pdf
> [5] http://www.geoforall.org
>
>
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-- 
Daria Svidzinska
http://lab.osgeo.org.ua/
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