Geo for All – Making geospatial education and opportunities accessible to all

The motto of the ICA-OSGeo Labs initiative is “Geo For All.” By combining the potential of e-learning tools and open source geospatial software, the academic community can strengthen education in GIScience providing students with a holistic education covering open source, open standards, and open data in geospatial technology.

The widespread application of e-learning tools and open source GIS will increase access to GIS education. Free and open GI software helps make geospatial education available to students from economically poor backgrounds worldwide (removing the need for high cost proprietary GI software).  The key aim of Geo for All is to make it possible for students in developing and poor countries to be also able to get geospatial education.  Geo for All will be starting work on “Train the Trainer” GIS programs for school teachers all over the world.

It is very important to have open source GIS and standards (OGC, ISO TC 211) based solutions to achieve widespread application of geotools at the grassroots level especially in developing countries. Open source GIS provides accessibility, low cost solutions and lowers the entry barriers for the use of geospatial technologies for all.

Geo for All is currently comprised of 70 labs worldwide.

Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss has more than 20 years experience in the geospatial software industry and 15 years experience developing enterprise geospatial solutions for the utilities, communications, and public works industries. His particular interests include the convergence of BIM, CAD, geospatial, and 3D. In recognition of his efforts to evangelize geospatial in vertical industries such as utilities and construction, Geoff received the Geospatial Ambassador Award at Geospatial World Forum 2014. Currently Geoff is Principal at Between the Poles, a thought leadership consulting firm. From 2001 to 2012 Geoff was Director of Utility Industry Program at Autodesk Inc, where he was responsible for thought leadership for the utility industry program. From 1999 to 2001 he was Director of Enterprise Software Development at Autodesk. He received one of ten annual global technology awards in 2004 from Oracle Corporation for technical innovation and leadership in the use of Oracle. Prior to Autodesk Geoff was Director of Product Development at VISION* Solutions. VISION* Solutions is credited with pioneering relational spatial data management, CAD/GIS integration, and long transactions (data versioning) in the utility, communications, and public works industries. Geoff is a frequent speaker at geospatial and utility events around the world including Geospatial World Forum, Where 2.0, MundoGeo Connect (Brazil), Middle East Spatial Geospatial Forum, India Geospatial Forum, Location Intelligence, Asia Geospatial Forum, and GITA events in US, Japan and Australia. Geoff received Speaker Excellence Awards at GITA 2007-2009.

View article by Geoff Zeiss

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*