Wim Koolhoven
Abstract of the presentation
52North – Geospatial Open Source Technology for Research and Education
The role of geographic information and earth observation science play an increasing role for a broad range of issues in daily life. The education of the necessary skills is of major concern by the major educational institutes. While e-Learning or remote distance learning becomes more and more important, software tools have to be suited to match the new demands: Software components have to flexible enough to be used within different kinds of environments, both local desktop based and distributed. At the same time, the licence models shall allow making use of those components without minimal restrictions.
Open Source Software is one solution to match those demands. To achieve a high increase of value, interoperability is the keyword. The most promising activities in geoprocessing interoperability are those of the Open Geospatial Consortium. The open source initiative 52°North (www.52north.org), founded by the Institute for Geoinformatics (University of Münster, Germany), Con terra GmbH (Münster, Germany), and the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation ITC (Enschede, The Netherlands) addresses the creation of software that transforms the specification by OGC into ready-to-use products.
Bio:
Wim Koolhoven has a MSc Chemical Engineering of the University Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands (1985). Since 1999 he is head of the unit Geo Software Development, IT department of the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) in Enschede. In this function he coordinates the software development for both research and education within ITC. He has many years experience as software developer and designer and was a.o. responsible for the architecture and project leader of the world wide used GIS/RS software package ILWIS.
Events: Geo Information Systems (GIS)