ITC Offer SDI Workshop at African ESRI Conference

09 August 2007, 4:20pm

August, 2007 - ITC would like to inform readers of a workshop in the run-up to the 2nd East African ESRI User Conference, mid-September in Kampala, Uganda. Under the title "Design Methods for sustainable SDI 2007" they hope to bring together representatives from African organisations with a strong technical background and interest. The half-day workshop will take place on September 12th in Kampala.

The workshop will discuss whether standardisation of methods, techniques (perhaps even software stacks and platforms) used in the design and implementation of SDI systems is worth pursuing, and if it is, how can this best be accomplished. One vision is for a loosely organised network of organisations in Africa, sharing their knowledge and experience in setting up these systems, sharing experience and learning from each other.

ITC's interest in this domain is in spatial information systems, service-orientation, open source solutions, transformational designs, separation of concerns, OGC standards, and supporting technology, and we hope to contribute to organisations with an interest in geoservice consumption and provision by easing their implementation efforts. Their perspective for the future is to accommodate such a network with an open web-based experience centre, but also with capacity trainings and project support.

With the workshop, ITC hope to generate interest with properly placed organisations and governmental agencies. These will include national mapping agencies of course, but other organisations will also be addressed, on the user side of geoservices, like those in health, education, and others.

ITC are currently working on the workshop format, and will shape it when replies to invitations come in. Up-to-date news will always be available from the workshop's website at www.itc.nl/sdidm07. Those who feel that they could contribute should contact either Rolf de By or Lyande Eelderink (see below).

dr ir Rolf A. de By
assoc prof Geodata Management and Engineering
dept Geoinformation Processing
SDI Technology research group
ITC - International Institute for Geo-information Science & Earth Observation
Hengelosestraat 99
7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands
ph +31 53 4874553 fx +31 53 4874335
email deby@itc.nl

Lyande Eelderink, MSc
Project Officer
Bureau of Marketing and Project Services
ITC - International Institute for Geo-information Science & Earth Observation
Hengelosestraat 99
7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands
ph +31 53 4874401 fx +31 53 4874436
email eelderink@itc.nl

www.itc.nl/sdidm07

Geo: International