Spatial Data Infrastructure Needed for Location-Based Innovations in Africa

Kind of a late notice, but join us on Tuesday at 3.30pm at the FIU GIS Center. Willy Franck Sob from Sogefi Cameroon will give the following talk:

How to Build from Scratch? A Free and Open-source Spatial Data Infrastructure Needed for Location-Based Innovations in Africa

Smart cities in an African context require intelligent planning and an active citizenry rather than the overlay of technological solutions more applicable to international markets such as Europe.

Many of today's digital businesses have location technology at the heart of their service offerings. But how do we proceed in a context of lack of basic geographical data? The capital investment costs generally form an obstacle for large-scale mapping. Nowadays it is clear that models based on crowdsourcing greatly reduce production costs while facilitating the update.

For two decades in developed countries, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are used by the government for their decision making. To carry out such policies, planning and management in Africa, the GIS tool can be of great help. This is especially true in an environment where collaborative models open new perspectives for the efficient production of geographic data. It is thus understood that the existence of a geographic reference frame is essential to the implementation of location-based services.

GéoCameroon is the first Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) of Cameroon based on OpenStreetMap. Easily transposable to other countries, it brings together on a single platform all geographic data. The main goal is to enhance existing applications or to enable smart applications and services.

Tuesday (4/2). 3.30pm @ FIU GIS Center. Green Library GL274