This document summarizes the Geo4All initiative, an OSGeo project aimed at making geospatial education and opportunities accessible to all. It discusses the founding and growth of Geo4All since 2010, including partnerships with other organizations. Geo4All has regional and thematic groups focused on topics like teacher training, urban science, and citizen science. It also highlights educational activities like webinars, summer schools, and mapathons that promote open geospatial science. The monthly newsletter provides updates on Geo4All activities and resources to further its mission of open and inclusive geospatial education worldwide.

1. Geo4All: a successful
OSGeo Initiative
Maria Antonia Brovelli and Venkatesh Raghavan
maria.brovelli@polimi.it,
raghavan@media.osaka-cu.ac.jp
Tokyo, 1st
March 2016

2. OSGeo
● The Open Source Geospatial Foundation
(OSGeo) is a not-for-profit organization whose
mission is to foster global adoption of open
geospatial technology by being an inclusive
software foundation devoted to an open
philosophy and participatory community driven
development.

3. GeoForAll: 109 Labs!

4. Mission
Making Geospatial education and
opportunities accessible to all
Dimensions to “Openess”
Open source software.
Open data.
Open standards.
Open access to research publications.
Open education resources.
F
r
e
e

5. 2010 - Open Source Geospatial Lab founding
meeting at University of Nottingham
Aim: Build research and teaching infrastructure worldwide
Problem: No funding!
Biggest Strength: amazing support from colleagues and
students

6. 2011 Memorandum of Understanding
between OSGeo and ICA

7. 2014 Memorandum of Understanding
among OSGeo, ICA and ISPRS

8. Regional Groups
North America
Chairs: Helena Mitasova (VP), Charles
Schweik, Phillip Davis
http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-northamerica
South America
Chairs: Sergio Acosta y Lara and Silvana
Camboim
http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-
southamerica

9. Regional Groups
Africa
Chairs: Rania Elsayed Ibrahim, Serena
Coetzee and Bridget Fleming
http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-africa
Asia (including Australia)
Chairs: Tuong Thuy Vu and Venkatesh
Raghavan (P)
http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-asiaaustralia

10. Regional Groups
Europe
Chairs: Maria Antonia Brovelli and Peter
Mooney
http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-europe
Language Groups
Spanish
Chairs: Sergio Acosta y Lara and Antoni
Pérez Navarro
http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-spanish

11. GeoForAll Overall aims
● Establishing research and teaching opportunities
in ‘Open Geospatial Science
● Build global open access teaching and research
infrastructure
● Provide worldwide learning platforms and
training opportunities
● Establish collaborations between Academia,
Schools, Government and Industry around Open
Geospatial Science and Education

12. Why is GeoEducation important?
● Knowing the world around us:
be aware about the reasons of
problems of access to water,
sanitation, traffic congestions,
economic sustainability,
citizens’ health, impact on
environment, etc.
● Mapping is a critical component
to help create solutions for
sustainable development and
Future Earth.
THE POWER OF THE MAPS!
Kibera , Kenya
Dharavi, Mumbai

13. GeoEducation for Kids
Making resources including software and data openly
available offers an opportunity for knowledge to be
shared widely so as to increase learning opportunities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orwN9K07XPo
For more details:
sacosta@dntopografia.gub.uy
aanguix@gvsig.com

14. GeoEducation for Kids
For more details:
elzbieta.woloszynska@gridw.pl

15. Mapathons for kids
For more details:
maria.brovelli@polimi.it
marco.minghini@polimi.it

16. Thematic Groups
Teacher Training & School Education
Thematic
Chairs: El bieta Wołoszy ska-Wi niewskaż ń ś
and Adrian Manning
http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-
bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-teachertraining
Collaboration with Mapstory
http://mapstory.org/

17. GeoEducation for Adults
Webinars

18. GeoEducation for Adults
Webinars
For more details:
Rafael.Moreno@ucdenver.edu

19. OSGeo Live: fundamenal
resource for Education
http://live.osgeo.org/en/ http://live.osgeo.org/en/metrics.html

20. Summer Schools
Training School "FOSS4VGI - Using Free and
Open Source Software with VGI: integration,
analysis and visualisation", Como 12-14
July 2015.
Supported by: COST Action TD1202 - Mapping and the Citizen Sensor

21. Courses and Hackathons
European Center for Medium range Weather
Forecasting (ECMWF), GLOFASS (GLObal
Flood AwarnesS System)hackathon 16 and
17 January 2016.
nge Format
ian OpenStreetMap Team
al Cartographic Association
national Council for Science – World
ructure for Spatial Information in
onal Society for Photogrammetry and
arkup Language
tection and Ranging
nizing Committee
etail
dum of Understanding
erican Datum
eospatial Intelligence Agency
ational Resources
spatial Consortium
urce Geospatial Foundation
etMap
al Centre for Mapping of Resources
t
Infrastructure
Data Analyst at ECMWF on the EarthServer-2 project.
Dear all,
First-ever hackathon of ECMWF took place on the
weekend 16 and 17 January 2016.
The event brought together participants from ECMWF,
universities, environmental consultancies, and software
development companies. Their goal was to explore
ways of making the Global Flood Awareness System
(GloFAS) more user-friendly for its end-users. GloFAS
already provides pre-operational global forecasts of
extreme flood events.
The hackathon saw about 50 volunteers working day and night to c
software prototypes using data from the GloFAS system.
12
friendly way with key statistics which could help decision-
making.
FloodIT
Provides more intuitive information based on the GloFAS
output to help local users understand their
situation.
Interception
A Flood Awareness Education Platform
An educational game/online interactive platform to help
inform people about what they should be doing when a
flood watch/warning alert is issued in their region.
Also, the game/platform will educate them on what to do
during and after a flood event.
People at ECMWF are truly impressed with what solutions
all the teams came up with in only one and half days. They
got very good inspirations in order to improve GloFAS,
which will be essential for a better flood prediction and a
faster emergency response.
OpenCitySmart - The Open platform for Smart
Cities
by Suchith Anand, Nottingham GeospatialInstitute,
University of Nottingham, UK
Dear colleagues,
Inspite of all the technological advancements, it is a sad
fact that majority of the world's poorest living in urban
areas do not still have access to basic facilities (clean
water, proper sanitation and hygiene facilities , good
quality education opportunities etc). In order to achieve
UN Millennium Development Goals it is essential to
develop infrastructure facilities, strengthen the
muncipal authorities and local city government
organisations (reduce corruption etc) in the developing
world for helping improving the living standards of the
people.
Photo by Florian Rathgeber
Photo by Florian Rathgeber

22. Thematic Groups
Urban Science - City Analytics
Chris Pettit and Patrick Hogan
http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-
bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-urbanscience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWuMfMMPfPw

23. Thematic Groups
AgriGIS
Didier Leibovici and Nobusuke Iwasaki
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Agrigis

24. Thematic Groups
GeoCrowd - VGI, Crowd Sourcing and
Citizen Science
Maria Antonia Brovelli and Peter Mooney
https://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-
bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-geocrowd

25. Main topics of Geocrowds
● Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI):
Including the famous examples of OpenStreetMap,
WikiMapia, Google Mapmaker, Geograph project, etc
and then many smaller less well known examples.
● Passive, Ambient, Involunteered Geographic
Information, Geocrowdsourcing : This includes systems
and services where the citizen or a group are not actively or
physically involved in the task of generating, collecting,
managing geographical data. This includes geocoded tweets
in Twitter, georeferenced images in Instagram, geolocated
social media and media content. This can also include data
and information generated by 'sensors' carried by citizens
such as GPS-enabled smartphone technologies, wearable
devices, etc.
● Citizen Science: This is where citizens or groups of citizens
are involved in scientific research usually with authoritative
scientific organisations.

26. Monthly Newsletter
Table of Contents
Editorial ..…..............…............. 1
1. Activities …………………………… 1
Editorial Board ………………....…. 2
2. Lab of the month..…............. 4
3. Events ……………….….…....…... 5
4. Conferences ……………… 5, 6, 7
5. Webinars
6. Courses …………….……………... 7
7. Training programs …..…...... 8
8. Key research publications
9. Funding opportunities
10. Free and open software.. 8, 9
11. Free Books ……………….. 9, 10
12. Articles ….. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
13. Scholarships for students and
staff
14. Exchange programs for
students and staff
15. Awards
16. Web sites
17. Ideas ………………………..…… 14
18. Social contribution
Volume 2, No. 2 February 2016
1. Activities of the
Network
Siberian State University of
Geosystem and Technologies has
announced opening of business
incubator for students based on
Siberian OpenSource Geospatial Lab.
More information at
http://sgugit.ru/news/the-opening-
of-the-workshop-projects-shuga/
Editorial
Nikos Lambrinos
Chief Editor
Dept. of Primary Education
Aristotle Univ. of Thessaloniki
Greece
Dear members of the Network/
readers of the Newsletter,
In this issue you can read two very
interesting articles: one for the
European Center for Medium range
Weather Forecasting and the second
about the OpenCitySmart – the Open
City Platform.
The first one has to do with the Global
Flood Awarness System while the
second for the improvement of the
living standards of the people living,
mainly, in the cities of poor countries.
In fact, both articles show how
volunteerism can help and upgrade the
living standards of the people and how
much the efforts or our Network can
upgrade the quality of life. It is
important to know that our ideas,
however bizarre they may seem at first
place, can become true when we share
with others and work together.
Along with the articles, you can find all
the other topics like conferences,
courses, free software, etc.
Have a nice reading
Nikos Lambrinos, Chief Editor.

27. 2
February 2 0 1 6Volume 2, N o. 2
Please refer to the appropriate person according to the following table:
Chief Editor Nikos Lambrinos, Associate Professor, Dept. of Primary
Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
President of the Hellenic digital earth Centre of Excellence
labrinos@eled.auth.gr
Oceania
Co-editor Rizwan Bulbul, Assistant Professor of GIScience
Head of Geospatial Research and Education Lab
Department of Space Science, Institute of Space
Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan
bulbul@grel.ist.edu.pk
India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal,
Burma, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Israel, Lebanon,
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, United Arab
Emirates, Kuwait and Islands of S. Pacific.
Co-editors Pavel Kikin, Senior Lecturer “Department of applied
informatics and IT”, Siberian State University of
Geosystems and Technologies
Alexey Kolesnikov, Senior Lecturer “Department of
cartography and GIS”, Siberian State University of
Geosystems and Technologies
it-technologies@yandex.ru
Russia, Mongolia, China, Japan, S. Korea, Vietnam,
Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia,
Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Philippines,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and
Kyrgyzstan.
Co-editor Rania Elsayed , Computers & Information Researcher,
Division of Scientific Training & Continuous Studies,
National Authority for Remote Sensing & Space Sciences,
Cairo, Egypt.
ranyaalsayed@gmail.com
Africa
Co-editor
Elżbieta Wołoszyńska-Wiśniewska (Ela), Head of Education
Unit UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre
ela@gridw.pl
Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Germany,
Belgium, The Netherlands, Poland, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Czech Republic,
Slovakia.
Co-editor Antoni Perez Navaro, Associate Professor at Universitat
Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) Computer Sciences and
Multimedia Department
aperezn@uoc.edu
Portugal, Spain, France, U.K., Ireland, Iceland,
Luxemburg, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary,
The Balkans.
Co-editor
Emma Strong, GIS Coordinator with Southern Mississippi
Planning and Development District
eestrong118@gmail.com
North and Central America
Co-editor
Sergio Acosta Y Lara, Departamento de Geomática
Dirección, Nacional de Topografía, Ministerio de
Transporte y Obras Públicas, URUGUAY
sergio.acostaylara@mtop.gub.uy
South America
Production Designer
Nikos Voudrislis, Principal of the 1st
Primary School of
Asvestochori, Thessaloniki, Greece, MSc, PhD candidate in
geography education.
nvoudris@gmail.com
Design and final formation of the newsletter
Editorial Board

28. Thanks to All Friends of Geo4All,
especially to Suchith Anand
and thank you for your attention
Questions?
http://www.geoforall.org/