Outreach and Capacity Building
Article

Outreach and Capacity Building

 

ISPRS Summer Schools
Participants at previous ISPRS Student Consortium Summer Schools.

A primary vision of ISPRS is that the Society should be “…the primary provider of educational resources and capacity building to increase public understanding and use of spatial information and the associated technology, and to ensure an ongoing supply of trained scientists in photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences.” Implementation of this vision requires the scientific community to work with the public to ensure the role of geospatial data is understood and data are used to the best advantage for all of society. Five outreach initiatives of ISPRS include: 1) Regional Representatives; 2) Technical Commission VI devoted to education and capacity building; 3) Student Consortium Summer Schools; 4) ISPRS Foundation travel grants to assist regional participation in ISPRS events; and 5) Cooperation with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to provide training at regional geospatial conferences.

 

Regional Representatives are appointed to assist the ISPRS Council with activities promoting the mission and visions of ISPRS in areas that are not adequately represented. This term, the Regional Representatives are Hussein Farah, director general of the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development in Nairobi, Kenya; Mario Hernandez, formerly of UNESCO; and Nguyen Dinh Duong, in the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam. These individuals represent the views and concerns of their particular region, encourage organisations and countries in their region to become members of ISPRS and attempt to host at least one ISPRS meeting within their region during the inter-Congress period.

 

Technical Commission VI, ‘Educational, Technology Transfer and Capacity Development’, has a critical role in ISPRS to support, promote and stimulate education and training, technology transfer and activities in underrepresented regions. The Working Groups of Commission VI are focused on these goals, as well as support and connection with the ISPRS Student Consortium and co-ordination of regional capacity development activities. The president of Commission VI, Jianya Gong, and secretary, Peng Yue, of the State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying Mapping and Remote Sensing (LIESMARS) at Wuhan University, China, along with vice president Tsehaie Woldai from ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands, are leading six working groups towards enhanced geospatial education, training and regional activities that elevate the power of geospatial data to a global audience [http://www2.isprs.org/commissions/comm6.html]

 

The ISPRS Student Consortium (SC) is a vibrant organisation formed in 2004 to link advanced university students and young professionals from around the world who are interested in geospatial sciences. The SC provides a platform for information exchange, student-focused events and activities connecting talented, early-career individuals within ISPRS. Working closely with WG VI/5, the SC has organised an annual Summer School in locations such as Turkey, Poland, Slovenia, China, Vietnam, USA, Taiwan and Thailand. Plans are currently underway for the 9th Summer School to be hosted in Ethiopia.

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