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What's New

• Spatial Data Infrastructure Africa Update, Vol. 2, No. 11 (September 2003) [ http://www.gsdi.org/SDIA/sdiav2n11.txt] Spatial Data Infrastructure - Africa (SDI-Africa) is a free email newsletter for people interested in GIS, remote sensing, and data management issues in Africa. To subscribe to SDI Africa, unsubscribe, or change your email address, contact klance@usgs.gov Please see below for links to back issues which also may provide useful information.
  
  Click the following link to view past issues of the Spatial Data Infrastructure News.

• First announcement for AfricaGIS '03 in Dakar, Senegal, Nov. 4-8, 2003. The main theme for AfricaGIS'03 is 'Meeting the Information Needs for the NEPAD'. This document includes registration information and details for submissions for papers, posters, workshops, or demonstrations. The deadline for abstracts has been extended to May31, 2003.

• October 18, 2002: Nearly 200 African parliamentarians have endorsed the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), for the first time putting the continent's elected representatives strongly behind the new initiative. http://www.undp.org/dpa/index.html

• Sept. 16, 2002: OGC Interoperability Standards Underpin New International Grant Program Unveiled by Intergraph, $5.5 million pledged toward GSDI development by harnessing industry standards http://www.intergraph.com/gis/newsroom/press02/ingrgrtprg_rlsf.asp http://www.intergraph.com/gis/ogc/interop.asp Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions announced the Intergraph Open Interoperability Grant Program, a new international grant program promoting and emphasizing the use of OGC interoperability specifications for accessing and applying geospatial information from a local to a global level. The announcement coincided with the sixth Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) Conference held in Budapest, Hungary. This broad new initiative, with a value of more than $5.5 million (U.S.), supports the GSDI organization's mission of ready global access to geographic information. The program will emphasize the use worldwide of OpenGIS(r) Specifications from the geospatial industry standards body, the Open GIS Consortium (OGC). The grant program actively promotes interoperability and enables organizations using geospatial information to build open Web services and publish their data using Geography Markup Language (GML), thereby allowing easy and open exchange of data.

• Spatial Data Infrastructure - Africa (SDI-Africa) is a free email newsletter for people interested in GIS, remote sensing, and data management issues in Africa. To subscribe to SDI Africa, unsubscribe, or change your email address, contact klance@usgs.gov
  
  
• July 26, 2002: the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources (BESR) released Down to Earth: Geographic Information for Sustainable Development in Africa. The report says the U.S. should continue to make geographic data from satellite images, the Global Positioning System, and other data available to researchers in other countries to aid sustainable development efforts. Focused on the application of geographic data in sub-Saharan Africa, the report also says the U.S. should support African efforts to improve data and telecommunications infrastructures and build geographic education, training, and research programs. The report was prepared for the State Dept. in advance of next month's U.N. World Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. The full report is at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10455.html.

• GASSIA workshop report now online: Geospatial Applications to Support Sustainable International Agriculture (GASSIA): Workshop Report, May 19-31, 2002
  GASSIA is a collaborative effort of the Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the USGS/EDC, the Collaborative Research Support Program (CRSP) and other organizations applying remotely sensed and geospatial data and promoting sustainable international agriculture.

• Support for African Global Change Research
  (visit the START announcement page for information about current fellowships, awards, and training institutes) http://www.start.org/What's_New/announcements.html START Young Scientists' Conference 1st Announcement START is now accepting applications for the 2nd round of the START African Doctorial Fellowships Award program START is now accepting applications for the 11 round of the START Fellowship/Visiting Scientist Award program.
  The Advanced Training Institutes Urbanization, Emissions and the Global Carbon Cycle (August 4-22, 2003 - NCAR, Boulder, Colorado, USA)

• MATS training -- the focus is "Training in NetWeaver and GeoNetWeaver"
  Decision Support Tools (see brochure).
  
  Contact:
  
  J. Kathy Parker, Ph.D.
  President/Social Ecologist
  The Heron Group, LLC
  P.O. Box 741
  Georgetown, DE 19947
  Phone 302-856-3324
  Fax 302-856-6985
  Eddress jkparker@dca.net
  Website www.herongroupllc.com
  "Facilitating Excellence"TM