[Ica-osgeo-labs] Geo4All - what can YOU DO THIS YEAR to move us toward this vision?

[Suchith Anand]

Dear All,

Special thanks to Charlie, Helena, Phillip, Patrick, Maria and all we had excellent GeoforAll meetings in Como to discuss ideas for the future. Thanks to all who participated. I could only connect to for the first and last meetings as there was internet connection problems - maybe too many people trying to connect :)

One of the important decisions made was to  have all "labs" in the same table irrespective of they are university, government, industry, NGOs etc  and welcome Governments, Industry, SME's etc who support OSGeo's education mission to join us as "Partners" (in a separate table - i.e those who do not wish to setup a lab but just support ) . So we have global network of  Open Geospatial Science Research and Education ‘Labs’ and ‘Partners’ to expand more collaborations for the future. "Geo for All " is an evolutionary step for the OSGeo’s Education Committee . OSGeo Education Committee and GeoForAll are one and the same  http://www.osgeo.org/education  

This  partnership and collaboration between OSGeo and ICA (and also now with ISPRS ) has been the main reason for the success. We now crossing 100+ ICA-OSGeo labs is the perfect answer to all those who laughed at the idea of having 5 labs established in 5 years  when we announced the ICA-OSGeo MoU . True, that we did not have any money or funding BUT we were able to bring in amazing people who joined forces for this mission.  We have to thank both the OSGeo Board and ICA Executive who in 2011 time backed the MoU idea and Arnulf and Georg who took leadership on this. This Inclusiveness and togetherness are fundamental for future growth as well and we should take steps to expand this. 

We will have summary reports from Ela (School education) and Anne (Europe Bof) soon.

Anne is now bit busy and has kindly appointed Peter Mooney (Ireland) as the new cochair for Europe with Maria. On behalf of the community, we thank Anne Ghisla for all her hardwork and contributions for Geo4All over the years. I am sure Peter and Maria will build upon this.

I understand that Charlie had created the following 4 key questions[1] for discussing at Como meeting and i thought it was excellent idea that need to be shared with the wider community and get everyone's inputs

* Geo4All - What would you like to see Geo4All in 5 years -- 2020  -- in the context of educational collaboration?
* Geo4All  - What we need to do together to achieve this vision?
* Geo4All  - What can we do THIS YEAR to move forward?
* Geo4All - What can YOU DO THIS YEAR to move us toward this vision?


May i request all to reflect and email your ideas. Esp. we are interested to hear on "what can YOU DO THIS YEAR to move us toward this vision?"

I also thank Charlie for his efforts for all these meetings and Grant Sprint. In fact, Charlie has been doing background work for the NSF bids and GeoforAll meetings over the last 3 months atleast while he was at  Nottingham. I really hope that Grant sprints will become a key event at all FOSS4G conferences for colleagues to build ideas for future proposals (NSF ,  H2020 or any other). Fingers crossed for Maria's COST bid already submitted and if we get funded, we will ensure all our Europe lab heads will get funded for attending FOSS4G 2016 in Bonn.  We should have an excellent FOSS4G 2016 with all this momentum building up.

Best wishes,

Suchith


[1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_EU_Como_2015_BOF1



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