[OSGeoLive] [Geo4All] Help needed for AgriGIS capacity development across Africa

Thu Aug 22 20:33:29 PDT 2019

Thank you so very much, Marguerite!

Your kindness to share the call and to extend the deadline for us to engage
with the expected participants in the Ghana meeting is highly appreciated.

As you may advise, we can respond to this as GODAN Africa or share the same
in the forums where we are spreading the word about the conference so that
as many people as are facing challenges that you seek can respond.

Our agenda is to create awareness of the opportunities that lie in open
solutions and what we have access to but we do not know exists, to address
the potential that lies in GeoScience. We believe that the opportunities
that lie untapped, the cause for the bulge in youth unemployment, can be
addressed through knowledge sharing that derives from open data; and that
the use of GeoScience can ably address this.

As soon as you share the drift in your expected mode of response to the
email, I shall link up with our partners in RCMRD; with whom we have joined
hands to promote this and give you a fitting response next week.

Sincerely yours,

Kiringai

On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 10:03 PM Marguerite Madden <mmadden at uga.edu> wrote:

> Dear Kiringai,
>
> I have read with interest your email exchanges with Suchith about building
> geospatial capacity in Africa and wanted to share this announcement and
> Call for Papers for a special issue of Geo-spatial Information Science
> (GSIS) on "Application of Geospatial Science in Disaster Mitigation and
> Conflict Resolution in Africa".  All publication costs for Open Access
> articles accepted for this issue will be covered by Wuhan University so it
> may be a good opportunity for you and others to publish your success
> stories and challenges with earth observations, GNSS, sensor networks, GIS,
> mobile mapping and geovisualization - among others.
>
> The submission deadline for manuscripts is noted as 10 October 2019, but I
> will be happy to negotiate for more time, especially given the timing or
> your upcoming conferences in Ghana.
> Contact information for the Guest Editors are listed below. Please feel
> free to contact any of us if you have any questions.
>
> Thank you in advance for your assistance.
> Best regards,
> Marguerite
>
>
>    - Walter Musakwa, Department of Town and Regional Planning, University
>    of Johannesburg, South Africa. wmusakwa at uj.ac.za
>    - Fanan Ujoh, Centre for Sustainability and Resilient Infrastructure
>    and Communities (SaRIC), London South Bank University, United Kingdom.
>    fananujoh at gmail.com
>    - Marguerite Madden, Center for Geospatial Research (CGR), Department
>    of Geography, University of Georgia, USA. mmadden at uga.edu
>    - Adriaan Van Niekerk, Centre for Geographical Analysis, Stellenbosch
>    University, South Africa. avn at sun.ac.za
>
>
>
> *Marguerite Madden, Ph.D.*
> *Professor and Director*
> *Center for Geospatial Research (CGR)*
> *Department of Geography*
> *University of Georgia*
> *Athens, GA 30602*
> *706-542-2379 (Office)*
> *706-340-7945 (Cell)*
> ------------------------------
> *From:* GeoForAll <geoforall-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> on behalf of
> Kiringai Kamau <kiringai.kamau at godan.info>
> *Sent:* Thursday, August 22, 2019 12:34 PM
> *To:* Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>
> *Cc:* Osgeolive <osgeolive at lists.osgeo.org>; GeoForAll <
> GeoForAll at lists.osgeo.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Geo4All] Help needed for AgriGIS capacity development
> across Africa
>
> [External Sender]
> Thanks, Suchith for the kind words and the good memories of where we have
> come from!
>
> I am humbled to be invited to this forum and to join the community of the
> people keen to change the world through knowledge sharing. It is a pursuit
> we all share.
>
> The challenge in Africa is not just learning the use of ICTs and GIS tools
> alone, but even maintaining traction with the foundational courses like
> Agriculture or veterinary as an extension and hence the creation of
> champion farmers from which others can learn is a challenge. We have
> therefore jointly with partners like CTA, Wageningen UR, and GODAN decided
> to create rural Hubs where integrating ICTs, Data, and Agriculture all
> happen at the same time. We encourage you to visit us when you have the
> opportunity to do so to learn more from what we are doing.
>
> Since the extension is a challenge, we are using students who will be
> domiciled in our Hubs to practice what they learn experientially and extend
> the knowledge to farmers as they also collect data that we then use to
> drive technology-based innovations. It is for this reason that we have
> partnered with RCMRD/AfriGEO and now mooting collaboration with Digital
> Earth Africa, to promote GIS anchored solutions development. We shall,
> therefore, need support in diverse ways which Suchith well captured in his
> introduction.
>
> This December, RUFORUM will hold their continental forum in Accra, Ghana
> and want to listen to what we are doing and proposing universities to do.
> We would like to go there with some case studies that we are discussing
> with RCMRD and some of the universities that we are working with.
>
> We also have another forum on Geospatial Data and Internet Conference
> <https://www.godan.info/events/africa-geospatial-data-and-internet-conference-2019> in
> October that we invite you to join in and explore how we can support many
> of the African Countries that shall be participating in this conference.
>
> I will be able to share more with any individuals that may seek to learn
> more.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Kiringai Kamau
> GODAN Africa Lead
>
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 2:30 PM Suchith Anand <
> Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
>
> The Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) supports the
> proactive sharing of open data to make information about agriculture and
> nutrition available, accessible and usable to deal with the urgent
> challenge of ensuring world food security. As part of GODAN’s Capacity
> Development Working Group[1], we ran AgriGIS ThinkTank in Nairobi (2016)
> and Washington (2017) to get inputs from the community. Details at
> https://www.godan.info/documents/summary-godan-think-tank-open-geo-data-and-open-tools-achieve-food-security-and-sustainable-agriculture
>
>
> As requested by participants at the GODAN ThinkTanks , we have
> provided links and resources for free and open tools for AgriGIS at the
> GODAN website and started promoting OSGeo software to our community
> members. There is big demand from the GODAN capacity development community
> for GeoForAll training resources [2] ,  OSGeoLive, open data tutorials
> etc. GODAN Capacity Development community consists of over 4000 members
> globally  from policy makers to students.
>
>
> As majority of our members are from developing world and from economically
> poor communities , there is internet bandwidth issues esp. for downloading
> big files like OSGeo Live (4GB!), so we have decided to provide them
> through USBs to our partners (RCMRD, RUFORUM etc) for their AgriGIS
> training in Africa and I would like to request help from the
> OSGeo community for  this. We will also be helping the Regional
> Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM)
> colleagues to establish GeoForAll labs in their universities. The Regional
> Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM),
> established by ten Vice Chancellors in 2004, is a consortium of 113 African
> universities operating within 38 countries spanning the African continent.
> RUFORUM is coordinated by a Secretariat hosted by Makerere University in
> Kampala, Uganda. RUFORUM supports universities to address the important and
> largely unfulfilled role that universities play in contributing to the
> well‐being of small‐scale farmers and economic development of countries .
> Details at https://www.ruforum.org/about-us
>
>
> In 2018, I was invited by RUFORUM to  address on the topic of  *“Harnessing
> the digital potential to drive  **higher education transformation in
> Africa”* [3].  I shared GeoForAll principles to ensure geo digital
> economy opportunities are also available to economically poor countries and
> economically poor people worldwide.
>
>
> I would like to introduce you to Kiringai Kamau ( GODAN Africa lead) and
> request you to help him and  all colleagues in Africa to build up
> capacity in AgriGIS. Kiringai is also Programme Lead for University of
> Nairobi’s Center for Agricultural Networking and Information Sharing
> (CANIS). He is the Executive Director for Programme for Capacity
> Development in Africa (P4CDA) where he is involved in a new thinking in
> African Agriculture - the Student Led Agricultural Extension (SLAE).
>
>
> I had the opportunity to meet Kiringai at the GODAN AgriGIS ThinkTank In
> Nairobi in 2016 [4]. He went on to establish GeoforAll at University of
> Nairobi’s Center for Agricultural Networking and Information Sharing
> (CANIS) and shared GeoForAll ideas to wider colleagues in Africa. I am
> impressed by his work on Capacity Development at grassroots level esp.
> for students and small holder farmers.
>
>
> Kiringai, You already know GeoForAll community. May I introduce you to
> OSGeo Live community. Please join the maillist at
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/osgeolive and send any queries
> you have to help you in your training needs. Please also request relevant
> colleagues in RUFORUM, RCMRD and other universities in Africa to join the
> OSGeolive maillist , so they can get help for their AgriGIS capacity
> development and training needs. Thanks.
>
>
> I also request the GeoForAll community to share ideas on developing  training
> materials in Capacity Development in Climate, Landuse, ecosystem services
> for Agriculture. Thanks.
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> Suchith
>
>
>
> Dr. Suchith Anand
>
> Chief Scientist
>
> Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition
>
> https://www.godan.info
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [1]
> https://www.godan.info/working-groups/capacity-development-working-group
>
>
> [2]
> https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/please-share-geoforall-teaching-research-resources-colleagues-students/
>
>
> [3]
> https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/harnessing-the-digital-potential-to-drive-higher-education-transformation-in-africa/
>
>
> [4]
> https://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/11/summary-of-agrigis-thinktank-and-workshop-2016-nairobi-kenya/
>
>
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>
> Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not
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>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> _____________________________________________________________________________________________________
> Kiringai Kamau
>
> *GODAN Africa Lead*
> Programme for Capacity Development in Africa (P4CDA Africa)
>
> *GODAN Head Office*
>
> 845 Sherbrooke Street West, *Montreal*, Quebec, Canada H3A 0G4
>
> Macdonald Campus, McGill University, 21111 Lakeshore Road,
> Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC H9X 3V9
>
>
>
> *Programme for Capacity Development in Africa (P4CDA)*
>
> PO Box 1618, 00100 GPO Nairobi, 1st Floor, Nyaku House, Argwings Kodhek
> Road
>
> Cell: +254 722 800 986/+254 733 375 505
>
> *Email*: *kiringai.kamau at godan.info <kiringai.kamau at godan.info>* or
> kiringai at perfect.africa
>
> *Website*: www.godan.info or www.perfect.africa, *Tweeter*: @kiringaik,
> *Skype*: kiringai.kamau
>
>

-- 
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Kiringai Kamau

*GODAN Africa Lead*
Programme for Capacity Development in Africa (P4CDA Africa)

*GODAN Head Office*

845 Sherbrooke Street West, *Montreal*, Quebec, Canada H3A 0G4

Macdonald Campus, McGill University, 21111 Lakeshore Road,
Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC H9X 3V9

*Programme for Capacity Development in Africa (P4CDA)*

PO Box 1618, 00100 GPO Nairobi, 1st Floor, Nyaku House, Argwings Kodhek Road

Cell: +254 722 800 986/+254 733 375 505

*Email*: *kiringai.kamau at godan.info <kiringai.kamau at godan.info>* or
kiringai at perfect.africa

*Website*: www.godan.info or www.perfect.africa, *Tweeter*: @kiringaik,
*Skype*: kiringai.kamau
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