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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