Ica-osgeo-isprs award

"Geo for All" Student Awards
It is important that OSGeo has strong strategic focus in education and this Student Awards initiative is aimed at further expanding our education objectives. It also builds upon the strong collaborations in place with ICA ,ISPRS and OSGeo through the Geo for All initiative.

The "Geo for All" Awards for Open Geospatial Science & Applications is awarded to students who have demonstrated contributions to FOSS4G. The aim of the awards is to recognise the excellent contributions from students worldwide not only to FOSS4G but also  acknowledge their contributions to open knowledge and being good global citizens by helping spread the benefits of education to all. Also by giving certificates with the backing of three great geo organisations (ICA, OSGeo and ISPRS) will be a great moral boost for the students. This recognition is much much bigger than the monetary award .The awards will be given at selected conferences/ events worldwide to ensure geographic distribution and participation.

= Aim =

From 2015 we aim to put in structures and procedures in OSGeo so that we are in a position to fund student awards for at least 10 Conferences/Competitions each year (including at all FOSS4G conferences) world-wide. Hence the request for initial seed fund of 10k USD to start this.

=Why we need Framework and Structure for Student Awards?=

To recognise the excellent contributions from students worldwide not only to FOSS4G but also acknowledge their contributions to open knowledge. It is important that there is structures in place to support this for future years and not just an adhoc arrangements and OSGeo should take the actions for establishing a strong framework  for this.

=Requirements=

It is important that there is one central point for managing all the accounts within the OSGeo budget but held in a separate section and the OSGeo Treasurer should be the responsible contact for this and produce yearly statements for us. It is important that OSGeo sees Student Awards as an educational investment and responsibility.

Other organisations are welcome to join the initiative but it is important that there is one central point for managing all the accounts (within the OSGeo budget but held in a separate section) and the OSGeo Treasurer should be the responsible contact for this and produce yearly statements for us.

= Background =

Thanks to contributions from ICA (500 Euros) and ISPRS (500 Euros) for the NASA Europa Challenge 2015 student prize, and confirmation from GeoCat to support student award at FOSS4G 2015 at Seoul, we are in a position to start the process of initiating ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS Student Awards in Open Geospatial Science. Georg Gartner (ICA President) will be there at FOSS4G-Europe to deliver keynote and to present the award.

But we want to make sure there is a system and process setup in place, so that it is long term and hence have setup an Award committee and now now working to setup proceduces and process to put this on a firm footing. So all ideas/suggestions welcome

Hence we request OSGeo Board to allocate 10k USD from the OSGeo budget for initiating the  ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS Student Awards scheme. This a seed amount to start the initiative. This will be administered by the OSGeo Treasurer and this Award Committee with Charlie Schweik as chair will be responsible for approving which conference/events/competitions to fund the awards. Also we will invite other interested organisations who wish to support this Award initiative to directly send their funding to OSGeo and the OSGeo treasurer will administer this for us. It is important that a system and structure is setup in place so that it builds upon for the future.

Award Committee :
 * Prof. Georg Gartner (President, ICA)
 * Jeff McKenna (President, OSGeo)
 * Chen Jun (President, ISPRS)
 * Prof. Charlie Schweik (USA) - Committee Chair
 * Prof. Maria Antonia Brovelli ( Italy)
 * Dr. Xinyue Ye (USA)
 * Dr. Luciene Delazari ( Brazil)
 * Dr. Tuong-Thuy Vu ( Malaysia)
 * Prof. Venkatesh Raghavan ( Japan/India)
 * Prof. Ivana Ivánová (Brazil)
 * Jeroen Ticheler (The Netherlands)
 * Dr. Serena Coetzee (South Africa)
 * Prof. Helena Mitasova ( USA)
 * Anne Ghisla (Germany)
 * Patrick Hogan (USA)
 * Dr Suchith Anand (UK/India)

= Process =

Once the structures are in place, From 2015 we aim to:


 * Send out a 'Call for Student Awards' scheme widely on appropriate mailing lists (osgeo discuss, etc) and also in the website of "Geo for All"


 * Only LOC of established GIS conferences including FOSS4G local conferences worldwide can apply


 * Interested LOCs to send their applications to the chair of the Award Committee with details of their selection procedures


 * Committee selects which events/conferences to fund the student award based on a set of criteria (to be developed by Charlie in consultation with all members)


 * LOC to prepare certificates and tokens of appreciation


 * Make arrangements for presenting award in coordination with LOC


 * Maximum 1k USD to be allocated per conference/event


 * All student award winners should write a blogpost after the event


 * All awards and winner details to be promoted widely through OSGeo channels and published at Geo for All website