Africa Local Chapter

Use this page as scratch pad to design activities within the Africa domain, project, local chapter, etc. Maybe it is a good idea to start with a member list with some a short introduction or link to the all members page.

Please join the Africa mailing list, and review the archive.

A RoadMap for OSGeo Africa

What is needed

Some common refrains from amongst the people I spoke to at FOSS4G2008:

• we don't know what FOSS GIS products exist
• how do we choose between two or more competing FOSS GIS products that do the same thing
• how can we get training in FOSS GIS
• how do we migrate our existing set up to FOSS GIS
• how can we get (PAID and otherwise) support for FOSS GIS
• where can we get free data

There were also some heartwarming success stories of people who have already adopted FOSS in their businesses and municiplities etc. For me when I review the above laundry list of concerns and questions it becomes very obvious that we need to become organised.

Getting organised

As such I would like to take the initiative to propose that we form a 5 person working group to start to put things in place. Since I am proposing this, I obviously volunteer to be one of the members and I call on others on this list or beyond to answer this call to arms. The idea of the 5 person working group will be to bootstrap ourselves into an effective organisation which can make its presence felt both locally and beyond the shores of Africa. I also realise that this proposal may not be perfect so consider it a start that we can build on rather than a plan that has to be cast in stone. The main idea will be that each working group member will try to form a small team, typically of 5 members including the team member. Here follows a proposal for a team that will enable us to get organised and effective.

Advocacy Leader:

People don't know they have FOSS alternatives - we need to make them aware - including by making press releases, press materials, attending industry events, making contact with academic, municipal and state bodies and letting them know we exist and want to collaborate.

Volunteer: ?

Education Leader:

We need to get FOSS GIS into schools, and provide open (e.g. creative commons) curricula. In the case of South Africa the National Curriculum Statement on Geography provides some (albeit vague) guidelines on how GIS should be included in the school curriculum (there is a link to this document on the GISSA website: School GIS).

Volunteer: ?

Training Leader:

• We need to train people to use FOSS GIS.
• First we need to train create a tier of experts / power users, second they need to train people in their local areas.
• We need to start this ""soon"".
• We need to do this on a free / cost recovery basis.
• We need to establish suitable venues in each regional center that can be used for training.
• We need to build up sets of Free (unencumbered) data that can be used by anyone
• We need to build up training materials that can be used to ease the process of training people.

Volunteer Leader: ?

Professional Support Leader:

We need to create a body of professionals who can provide on the ground support - there is a huge business opportunity here - we need to take advantage. We will call this the OSGeo Africa Professional Association (or something along those lines). The group will among other things provide a directory of FOSS support and solution providers (along with their location). The group will act as an advisory body to organisations wishing to deploy FOSS GIS.

Volunteer: Tim Sutton

Community Leader:

We need to build a community - this means building up a responsive, friendly mailing list. We also need to curate our area on the OSGeo wiki and build up other online resources that will allow new and established members in the OSGeo AFRICA community to find up to date relevant and helpful information to address their needs.

Volunteer: ?