As spring semester came to an end, the Geospatial Analysis Lab (GsAL) at USF got into a productive groove for summer 2017. As a first step towards the productive summer plans for GsAL, the first project started with representing USF in India at the ICT4D Conference (http://www.ict4dconference.org/) during the week of May 15th. Radhika Bhargava, graduate research assistant at GsAL collaborated with Google Mountain View to help with conducting a training in Google Earth Engine at Google Hyderabad. The whole week of conference focused on using data for meeting UN’s sustainable development goals for developing countries. The conference was joined by representatives all around the world, especially from African and Asian countries. The gist of the conference was on the importance of how data and technology can drive positive changes towards sustainability for developing countries.
On the last day of the conference, participants from government and non-government organizations were invited to take part in the training organized at Google HQ Hyderabad. There were about 60 participants from both technical and non-technical backgrounds. Radhika helped Nick Clinton (designation) in conducting and smooth functioning of the workshop/ Radhika uses GEE for her master’s thesis in which she is studying how land use and land cover change can be monitored using high resolution satellite images. The representation of GsAL and USF was well celebrated by the participants specially to connect with someone from their country working at a global scale and same was true for the GsAL to have collaboration at one of the home base of its members. The director of NRCA ISRO said, “GEE is a very useful tool, and to see how it is being used by students at USF gives me hope to bring it to our students at ISRO”.
As a next step, this collaboration will be taken forward to connect with ISRO and Google Bangalore for future projects. Personally, Radhika was impressed to see the amount of work and efforts people in India are putting into conservation and she is excited about the scope of geospatial analysis in this field in her home country. As for GEE, Nick says. “This was one of the most difficult, but fun workshop he has ever conducted. The room was filled with great questions, tremendous learning and ideas for hands on application”. Radhika hopes she can connect her work at USF with the needs of India to bring both of her worlds together.
On the last day of the conference, participants from government and non-government organizations were invited to take part in the training organized at Google HQ Hyderabad. There were about 60 participants from both technical and non-technical backgrounds. Radhika helped Nick Clinton (designation) in conducting and smooth functioning of the workshop/ Radhika uses GEE for her master’s thesis in which she is studying how land use and land cover change can be monitored using high resolution satellite images. The representation of GsAL and USF was well celebrated by the participants specially to connect with someone from their country working at a global scale and same was true for the GsAL to have collaboration at one of the home base of its members. The director of NRCA ISRO said, “GEE is a very useful tool, and to see how it is being used by students at USF gives me hope to bring it to our students at ISRO”.
As a next step, this collaboration will be taken forward to connect with ISRO and Google Bangalore for future projects. Personally, Radhika was impressed to see the amount of work and efforts people in India are putting into conservation and she is excited about the scope of geospatial analysis in this field in her home country. As for GEE, Nick says. “This was one of the most difficult, but fun workshop he has ever conducted. The room was filled with great questions, tremendous learning and ideas for hands on application”. Radhika hopes she can connect her work at USF with the needs of India to bring both of her worlds together.