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Dear All,

I would like to congratulate  Dr Tuong Thuy Vu and all colleagues in UNMC, Malaysia  who worked hard for organising a very successful   “GIS information workshop”focussed on open-source geospatial tools, data, and standards on 26th Feb 2016. This full day GIS Information workshop was free and open to all interested . 
Professor Christine Ennew, CEO and Pro vice chancellor of University of Nottingham, Malaysia campus (UNMC), in her opening speech, highlighted the great opportunities that open-source technologies may bring to all organisations and emphasised the full support of University of Nottingham to promote open-source and open education.  On behalf of the organising team, Dr. Tuong-Thuy Vu introduced the development of open-source research and promotion activities across University of Nottingham campuses and the aims of the workshop.  Thuy Vu also announced NGI/GRACE partnership with the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative http://www.godan.info/  to help expand ourAgriGIS research [1][2]. The Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative seeks to support global efforts to make agricultural and nutritionally relevant data available, accessible, and usable for unrestricted use worldwide. The initiative focuses on building high-level policy and public and private institutional support for open data. The initiative encourages collaboration and cooperation among existing agriculture and open data activities, without duplication, and brings together all stakeholders to solve long-standing global problem.

Thuy Vu provided an overview of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation's GeoForAll initiative  http://www.geoforall.org  and introduced the first 3 labs in Malaysia, followed by short presentations by the representatives of the 3 labs in Malaysia includingProf. Alias Abdul Rahman (UTM), Prof. Ruslan Rainis (USM) and Dr. Tuong-Thuy Vu (UNMC). There was also hands on session where participants got opportunity to learn more .

Details and photos of the event at http://blogs.nottingham.edu.my/geography/2016/03/01/gis-information-workshop/ 

This also builds synergies with the GIS Workshop for UK government organisations, SMEs and startups that was organised at the University of Nottingham [3]

The Open Source Geospatial Lab at UNMC, Malaysia was established by Dr Thuy Vu in 2011 and was the first dedicated Open Source Geospatial lab in South East Asia.   Thuy is the Asia chair of the Geo4All initiative of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and he is the driving force for expanding geoeducation opportunities for more students across Asia. Thuy Vu is the Asia chair of Geo4All . OSGeo UNMC's research, teaching and social service activities are at http://www.nottingham.edu.my/Geography/Research/GeospatialScience/OSGEO-lab.aspx 

The Open Source Geospatial Lab at UNMC are also involved in delivering various training events with industry like the successful ENSEARCH“GIS for Environmental Management” training [4] . One of important activities of OSGEO Lab at UNMC is to promote open education“philosophy” and technologies to Malaysian communities. Through a set of hand-on exercises to solve real world environmental issues, participants were instructed to apply beyond and enable new cost-effective approaches in their works after the training. Details of ENSEARCH at http://ensearch.org  and the workshop at [4].

We thank all colleagues and participants for making this workshop a great success in Malaysia which helps us build more stronger research collaborations .We are looking forward to build more research collaborations in AgriGIS [5] with colleagues globally. 

Best wishes,

Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org


[1] http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ngi/documents/news-pdfs/agrigis2012proceedings.pdf [2] https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ngi/research/geospatial-science/projects/grasp-gfs.aspx 
[3] http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2015/08/ree-gis-info-workshop-for-uk-government-organisations-smes-and-startups-the-university-of-nottingham/ 
[4] http://blogs.nottingham.edu.my/geography/2016/02/28/ensearch-gis-training-by-osgeo-lab/ [5] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Agrigis