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

Sat Aug 1 02:54:23 PDT 2015

great work, thanks to all contributors

On Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 10:21 AM, Siki Zoltan <siki at agt.bme.hu> wrote:

> Dear Suchith, Nikos and Co-editors,
>
> thanks for this excellent newsletter!
>
> Zoltan
>
> On Sat, 1 Aug 2015, Suchith Anand wrote:
>
> 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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-- 

Thanks & Regards
Rania Elsayed Ibrahim, PhD. Computers & Information
Researcher,
Division of Scientific Training & Continuous Studies,
National Authority for Remote Sensing & Space Sciences, Cairo, Egypt.

*23, Joseph Tito St., Nozha El-Gedida, Cairo, Egypt.                  *

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