User talk:Ravivundavalli

Ravivundavalli= V.Ravi Kumar as the former is a user id while the later is the name.

Evangelising FOSS GIS:
After being actively involved with FOSS GIS and OSGeo and OSGeo India in particular, I have realised that the much needed proliferation of FOSS GIS and OSGeo software in the developing world (like India) is quite different to the model followed in the developed world. Even the departments like, 'Geological Survey of India', 'NRSA', pioneering in use of GIS in the country, have several (man made) issues which do not exist in the developed world like USA, Italy, Japan and the rest of Europe. For the OSGeo's gospel to be heard in India and Asia you require someone who knows the ground realities. India is already spending billions to GIS enable its gevernance at various levels. But this sure will be a sad storey, as the data products created may not be used due to lack of licenses of commercial software. This will create a vaccuum that can be naturally filled by the usage of OSGeo and FOSS GIS softwares. Indian states like Kerala have officially adopted GNU-Linux as the official Operating System, but with mixed success as far as FOSS GIS is concerned. The very 1st workshop for awareness building had a mixed response, due to some issues with the OS. In Kerala software on GNU-Linux is only acceptable. As Co-Chairman for OSGeo India events, have been going around spreading OSGeo, which is most relevant to Indian conditions. Trying my best to introduce FOSS GIS software in various educational institutions. Spread of FOSS GIS software is very beneficial to INDIA which has scarce funding. Lot of funds are spent for generation of geospatial data through commercial software, which then wait in vain for mass utilization for the lack of licenses of Commercial GIS. Even if a few hundreds of commercial licenses are made available they cannot reach the nooks and corners of this vast highly populated country. So OSGeo can workout a GIS solution for India saving funds. There is also a catch-22 situation where students are only interested in learning skills that can land them a job, and FOSS GIS jobs can proliferate with availability skilled GIS personell. This can be solved by OSGeo's involvement by providing much needed encouragement to students. Conducting OSGeo Capacity building workshops and introducing FOSS GIS in curricula also will go a long way in realizing OSGeo's aims.OSGeo can also help customization of FOSS GIS through translation into Indian languages (already being done) and to suite various needs like, Urban town-planning, Policing, Sanitation etc, by roping in educational institutions providing possible research grants.

EVENTS of OSGeo India chapter
January 2007: Free and Open Source Software In Science, 4-6 January, 2007, Union Christian College, Alwaye, Kochi In this programme by a educational institution, the participants were introduced to Free and Open Source GIS software, and the organisations that promote them. A dataset prepared for the city of Hyderabad, using freely available satelite imagery along with freely downloadable SRTM data was demonstrated by V.Ravi Kumar, emphasising FOSS GIS. http://www.space-kerala.org/fsc/index.php/Fsc/FreeAndOpenSourceGIS

The 1st OSGeo-India workshop: The very first OSGeo workshop was held at the Map World Forum, Hyderabad 22-25th January 2007. This well attended event was also participated by OSGeo delegates from China, Vietnam and Japan. http://geospatial.blogs.com/geospatial/2007/01/map_world_forum.html http://www.gisdevelopment.net/magazine/years/2007/march/46.htm http://www.osgeo.org/files/journal/final_pdfs/OSGeo_vol1_Events.pdf

February 2007: National Conference on Biodiversity Conservation and Human Well-Being was organized by Department of Zoology, Osmania University and co-sponsored by SACON Deccan Regional Station, Hyderabad. The conference was held at Osmania University during February 8-10, 2007. SACON conducted a workshop on Wetland Informatics. It was aimed to address some of the issues related to spatial information generation, processing and data base design, dissemination and software development. In this workshop SACON presented Wetlands of India's website and it's future with the extensive use of FOSS tools. V.Ravi Kumar, Joint Secretory OSGeo India Chapter presented about the various FOSS4G's GIS software and their use taking the City of Hyderabad as an example. Prof K.S.Rajan, treasurer of OSGeo India chapter also actively participated in the proceedings. P.K.Sinha and A.V.Satya Kumar demonstrated FOSS GIS by showing OpenJUMP and it's userfriendly capabilities in performing vector GIS tasks like onscreen digitization of raster images to shape file with attribution.

March-2007: National Convention On Free Software, 3rd - 4th of March 2007, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh included a session on 'Geospatial data'. Dr K.S.Rajan, and V.Ravi Kumar of OSGeo-India chapter, presented 'OSGeo phylosophy', and Open Source GIS alternatives respectively, which was attended by Free Software Foundation (FSF) enthusisasts from around the country. http://www.swecha.org/node/29 Society of Geoinformatics Engineering at Anna University, Chennai, conducted a two-day Geohorizon 2007 symposium (16-17 march 2007). There were four participants from OSGeo India chapter two on each day. Sri Neeraj Deekshith of Autodesk India and Santosh Gaekwad of SACON Hyderabad, presented use of Open Source Geospatial software in their organisations. Mr V.Ravi Kumar, and Mrs Mahalakshmi Narayanan presented 'Open Source GIS Galore', and 'Open Source GIS for web-services' respectively. Santosh Gaikwad presented the use of GeoSever for internet mapping of Wetlands of india. He delievered the SACON's experience while studying GeoServer- a open source server for Web-GIS. Use of Udig and GeoServer for publishing vector or raster maps onto web by storing the spatial data into PostGIS was demonstrated. http://societyofgeoinformaticsengineers.blogspot.com/index.html

May 2007: On 11th May 2007 one day OSGeo-India workshop was held at, 'GIS Development', Noida (Delhi) with participants from the Indian geospatial community. They represented organizations like National Remote Sensing Agency, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Tata Consultancy Servicesv (TCS), MapInfo, Adroitec, GIS Consortium, Eicher, 5Map, Infosys, Autodesk, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, and Bharti Vidyapeeth's Institute of Computer Applications and Management (BVICAM). The workshop was opened by OSGeo-India representative Dr P.S.Roy, with an opening remark that,"GIS has emerged as an important technology tool. GIS initiatives need to be upscaled in terms of outreach and this is where OSGeo comes into play." One of the most important objective, from an Indian context, is to convert the free GIS tools like GRASS and MapServer in vernacular languages to form a large interest group. Dr. Roy also elaborated upon some of the noteworthy initiatives taken by organizations in India in the open source domain. V.Ravi kumar, who is a founder member of OSGeo India, spoke about various FOSS GIS like GRASS, Quantum GIS, UDIG, Open Jump available today. The demonstration on 'Locating a Nuclear Power Plant', using Open Jump, was not only interesting but also testified how FOSS GIS can be equally useful as commercial GIS softwares. Ravi Kumar also talked in length about utility of FOSS GIS in India. The most pertinent point raised by him was that FOSS GIS is cost effective and can, therefore, become popular in a developing country like India. It can also provide employment through promotion of Village Cadastral GIS where all that one spends on, is a branded computer (available for less than Rs.20,000), as no cost is incurred on the software because it is, free and open. Sridhar Saraswati of Autodesk India, also gave a presentation, which answered a vital question- why is Autodesk supporting free and open source softwares? The reason is that firstly, Autodesk wants a broader adoption of Internet mapping technology and secondly, FOSS would create higher demand for related products. It would also be beneficial for the customers as the frequency of software releases will increase, cost of ownership will come down and there will be more innovation and support for standards. Satyajit Rath from CDAC, Noida presenyted 'CDAC's Initiatives on Open Source GIS'. 'Geospatial Convergence with Open Source' was presented by Amit Jain, of Infosys. The workshop came to an end with the closing remarks by Dr. P.S Roy. He expressed hope that "commercial softwares should invest in open source to make it a win-win situation for all." http://www.gisdevelopment.net/magazine/global/2007/june/48.htm

June 2007: The OSGeo-India chapter has conducted it's 1st Capacity building 3 day workshop from 26th to 28th June 2007 at Salim Ali Centre For Ornithology & Natural History (SACON) Hyderabad. The workshop was attended by -18- participants from NIC, NRSA, IIIT, Spec Systems, Army and Survey of India. All the participants were conversant with commercial GIS software and were eager to acquaint with FOSS alternatives. The 1st day included demonstration and hands-on practice with OpenJUMP GIS and map composition through Inkscape. The 2nd day was devoted to ILWIS GIS through raster analysis and generation of stereo pair and 3D visualization. The 3rd day was for using GRASS GIS for network analysis and creation of 3D visualisation and fly-bi. The participants were shown how one can join the OSGeo as a member and help spread the awareness. The resource persons were from Geological Survey of India.

July 2007: A two hour lecture come demonstration of 'Open Source GIS GALORE', was presented by V.Ravi Kumar of OSGeo India, for the students of Geoinformatics post graduation course Nannaya University, Rajahmundry on 3rd July 2007. GRASS GIS and OpenJUMP were demonstrated using sample data. The students who could interact well in the question and answer session were presented GRASS6.2 Live CDs.

Link to photos of the above events http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=cjns10h3.batchqkn&x=0&y=o6f4mq