[Geo4All] Award for the Biggest donors of GIS software goes to all our Students Worldwide

[Enock Seth Nyamador]

Nice read. Thanks for sharing Dr. Suchith, see you in Ghana sometime soon.
:)

Best,

- Enock

2016-10-30 22:25 GMT+00:00 Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> Since GeoForAll was started, i had the opportunity to visit all continents
> (except Antartica!) spreading our ideas and meeting and learning from our
> amazing colleagues globally. The biggest personal happiness for me was
> getting the opportunity to meet our amazing colleagues and students
> worldwide all working together as a "global brain" for ensuring that we
> take steps to bring down the digital divide and ensuring that quality
> education opportunities are available for all.
>
>
> Our students worldwide are doing a great contribution by a genius work
> that they are doing now silently as the biggest donors of GIS software.
> They have been actively sharing software and educational materials to
> everyone by actively forwarding the urls of free and open source software
> like  QGIS download from http://qgis.org/en/site/   (there is also lot of
> documentation for learning at http://www.qgis.org/en/docs/index.html
> and  free online materails produced by GeoForAll colleagues at GeoAcademy
> with comprehensive QGIS tutorials  at http://spatialquerylab.com/fos
> s4g-academy-curriculum/     and also the freely available training
> materials at http://www.geoforall.org/training
>
> Talking with students in India and many other developing countries (where
> internet is relatively expensive) i understand that they all (esp.  in
> developing countries) download QGIS  usually from their university network
> (where there is good internet connection) and  then share it in USBs.  So
> in fact one student who downloads one copy of QGIS is making thousands of
> copies later.   So scale of expansion and impact is huge. I am so impressed
> by innovative thinking of  digital natives. No problem is big for them. In
> areas where internet is expensive  they come up with simple solution of
> downloading QGIS in thier university networks (where they have good
> connection) and then sharing QGIS in USBs to thier fellow students. The
> values of sharing and caring that  our current students globally have are
> more important than thier technical skills or knowledge and they inspire me
> every second. They are all true global citizens. Knowledge without
> compassion is useless. Caring and sharing are important values in
> education  . Details of why this is important at
> http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/07/sharing-is-car
> ing-why-openness-is-key-for-true-empowerment-and-sustainability/
>
>
> I am also very happy that free and open source software like QGIS havenow
> fully  empowered  our students and by sharing the software ,  students are
> now the biggest donors of GIS software. They are breaking down the
> artifical barriers created by proprietary GIS vendors and rapidly bringing
> down the walls of digital divide.  I was joking to some students in India
> that if they were a proprietary GIS vendor they would be doing big press
> releases that they are now donating 100 billion USD!
>
>
> This week i was at Nairobi and had the opportunity to meet and discuss
> ideas with many government organisations , educators and students in
> Africa. I was also invited by colleagues at Kenyatta University to deliver
> an open lecture to staff and students on Friday evening after my main
> meetings just before i left Kenya . Kenyatta University  also offers
> Geo-related courses.   There were also students from Technical University
> of Kenya, Nairobi University, Jomo Kenyatta University etc  who came for my
> open lecture . The students also live streamed the lecture for the benifit
> of others worldwide . It was a pleasure to share ideas with excellent
> students from different universities and i learned a lot from them . I was
> really impressed by the scientific abilities of the students but more
> importantly thier interest and dedication for contributing for the
> betterment of  others. I really see the potential for all these students to
> be the future leaders in their respective professions.  For decades
> students , SMEs, startups , government organisations etc in Africa and the
> developing world did not benefit from the opportunities of geospatial
> science because of high GIS software costs but now they themselves are
> changing it so everyone benefits from the opportunities of digital economy
> and they are rapidly bringing down the artifical barriers created by
> proprietary GIS vendors. The academics and students are now writing the
> rules of the game not any vendor.
>
>
> GeoForAll’s mission is to make geospatial education opportunities open to
> all and to make sure we all work together to create global citizens
> contributing to the betterment of humanity.  I thank   all teachers and
> students in Africa and worldwide  for your dedication and efforts. We are
> proud to honour you all as the Biggest donors of GIS software.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Suchith
>
> Dr. Suchith Anand
>
> http://www.geoforall.org/
>
> Geo for All - Building and expanding Open Geospatial Science
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