UNIGIS Portugal / NOVA IMS First International GEOINT Program to Achieve USGIF Accreditation

NOVA Information Management School of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA IMS), located in Lisbon, Portugal, has been added to the growing list of USGIF-accredited GEOINT programs.

Through the USGIF Academic Accreditation program, colleges and universities around the globe have the opportunity to receive accreditation of their geospatial intelligence programs accompanying a college degree. Students who meet high academic standards and graduate from accredited programs receive USGIF’s GEOINT Certificate, which helps ensure the GEOINT Community has a robust workforce now and in the future. To date, nearly 600 students have graduated with USGIF GEOINT Certificates.

NOVA IMS is the first non-U.S. school to receive USGIF academic accreditation. The inclusion of NOVA IMS represents a major step for USGIF and signals the broadening of GEOINT as a globally recognized professional discipline. NOVA IMS’s GEOINT curriculumwas developed collaboratively across its federated university structure and is truly interdisciplinary in its design.

“We at NOVA IMS are proud to be the first non-U.S. University to achieve USGIFaccreditation,” said Dr. Marco Painho, NOVA IMS program coordinator.

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Summer School opportunity: Smart Cities

21 - 29 August 2016 at TU Wien

The concept of Smart City is promising: The European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities highlights the opportunities to link and upgrade infrastructures, technologies and services in key urban sectors (transport, buildings, energy, ICT) in a smart way [that] will improve quality of life, economic competitiveness and sustainability of cities. Such conceptions present Smart City-solutions as mainly technology driven utopian visions of societal transformation while blurring the multitude of social decisions made in technology development which fundamentally shape the kinds of social transformations possible in urban life.

The Summer School brings together scholars from diverse disciplines including technical, economic, political, environmental and social disciplines to explore new sets of relationships between (a) society and technology and (b) people and data entailed in the Smart City vision and to contribute to a better understanding of processes transforming urban spaces

More information: http://summerschool2016-smartcity.tuwien.ac.at

Target group:
The Summer School invites excellent and interested advanced Master and PhD-students working in the field of Smart City. We seek participation from diverse disciplines including Urban Studies, Urban Planning, Sociology, Innovation Studies, informatics and other ICT/urban Informatics related areas.

Upon the successful completion of summer schools ECTS could be awarded towards the Elective subject, both for MSc and UNIGIS professional study programmes.
How to apply:
a) Letter of motivation with a brief description of the research topic, max. 3 pages;

b) Comprehensive CV; 

c) Letter of recommendation from supervisor.

Please send the application until May 31th to summerschool2016@tuwien.ac.at  

GI Forum 2016 Call for Posters Deadline May 1st

This year’s GI_Forum motto is “open : spatial : interfaces”. Take the opportunity to actively shape the program of the GI_Forum by presenting your work as part of our poster session. A poster presentation is a great way to present your work to a broad audience of professionals from different fields. For details see http://gi-forum.org/poster.

SPECIAL RATE of € 220,- for active UNIGIS Students

The special rate includes all events of the GI_Forum and the German-language counterpart, AGIT. Registration is open until June 25, 2016! Follow this link to register: http://gi-forum.org/registration.

Enter your Hexagon Smart M.App in the IGNITE competition!

The deadline for the Hexagon IGNITE Challenge is May 1st. We encourage our students to participate in this contest and create the M.App of the future. Please contact your local UNIGIS Coordinator about this challenge if you are looking for partners and ideas.

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UNIGIS Workshop in Kathmandu!

An intensive workshop with alumni, current students and instructors of UNIGIS@Kathmandu was organised on 13-14 March, 2016 at Kathmandu Forestry College (KAFCOL), Nepal. The workshop focussed on two major objectives: 1. enhancing interaction among the above mentioned three groups for exchanging best practice and experiences for effective online learning, and 2. establishing an effective approach towards writing a high quality Master Thesis.

UNIGIS Kathmandu board members

Dr. Shahnawaz (Director, UNIGIS S/E Asia) and Dr. Ram Asheshwar Mandal (Coordinator, UNIGIS@Kathmandu) moderated the workshop as well as presented examples of  'good practice' from other member within the UNIGIS International network. They also emphasised that students preferably focus on analysing 'local issues', demonstrating the relevance and applicability of geospatial methodologies.

Dr. Ambika P. Gautam (Principal, KAFCOL) presided over a board meeting at the conclusion of the workshop. All board members agreed on organising 'outreach events' for contributing to the after-earthquake rehabilitation activities in Nepal as well as for enhancing the role of geospatial technologies throughout disaster management cycles and emergency preparedness processes.