Board Press Release IGU OSGeo MoU

Title
OSGeo and the International Geographical Union (IGU) sign MoU

News Date/Place
2 October 2017, Osaka, Japan

Details
Tsu, Japan, 30 September, 2017: The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and the International Geographical Union (IGU) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a collaborative relationship between the global community of Geography professionals and the Open Source Geospatial community. The goal of this agreement is to promote the distribution and use of open geo-data in research, teaching and applications, promote the development of related GIS and Remote Sensing Open Source software, to work closely with the GeoForAll initiative in promoting open principles in education and science, and to organize joint international workshops on global geo-information sharing through the use of open geo-data and Open Source Geospatial software.

Professor Yukio Himiyama, President of the IGU, said "The IGU Executive Committee believes that this MoU offers potential of to IGU and OSGeo to make great contribution to society, and is excited to assist bridging the world geographic community with the Open Source geospatial community, and to support this bottom-up initiative.Some IGU Commissions may plan to organize joint international meetings on global geo-information sharing, while still others may wish to promote the distribution and use of open geo-data sets, So, let’s work together!"

Venkatesh Raghavan, President of OSGeo, said "Partnership with IGU will help further the goals and objectives of the OSGeo Foundation and foster R&D of high societal value. This MoU will bring OSGeo and IGU communities closer and complement each others strengths and extend their global reach. This is exciting news for the OSGeo community and its GeoForAll educational outreach. Look forward for fruitful collaborations between IGU and OSGeo"

About IGU
The International Geographical Union (IGU) is an international,non-governmental, professional organization devoted to the development of the discipline of Geography.The purposes of the IGU are primarily to promote Geography through initiating and coordinating geographical research and teaching in all countries of the world.

About OSGeo
The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open source geospatial technologies and data. GeoForAll is a collaborative education and research outreach initiative of OSGeo for making geospatial education and opportunities accessible to all.