Travel Grant Interviews
Edwin is one of our Travel Grant Receipients. Stay tuned for our upcoming interviews with TGP recipients.
Please attach a photo of yourself or if your prefer, something you think the geospatial community might find interesting (your city, town, favourite place etc.)
How did you first become involved in the geospatial community?
I have been an advocate of FOSS and have been involved in the Pacific Islands geospatial community for over 20 years now. I first got involved with the geospatial community during the first European Union Funded project in GIS/RS for Utilities in the Pacific Islands region under LOME III in 1997.
How would you describe the reputation of open source software in your area?
Highly Recommended, Applicable and Appreciated.
What geospatial tools do you rely on?
PostgreSQL/PostGIS, GeoServer, MapServer, OpenLayers, GeoEXT, GeoExplorer, GDAL, QGIS Server, QGIS Desktop, QGIS Server, QGIS Web Client, Lizmap Wep Client, MapInfo/MapBasic, Python and GRASS + R.
What trends or future applications are you most excited by in the geospatial industry?
Integration of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and Geospatial Systems.
What are the most important steps you believe the community can take to improve its diversity?
Raise more awareness by enabling capacity building at high school level for engagement in the geospatial community. Built contextualized solutions with success stories using a Bottoms-Up approach at the technical level.
If you had to eat one thing for the rest of the year, what would it be?
Watermelon.
Is there anything else you’d like to share (thoughts, projects, software)?
I believe that geospatially-enabled DTLs solutions will further enable Internet of Things (IoTs) in not just recording an entry’s specific time, but also require and validate its associated proof of location, thus facilitating the accurate spatio-temporal mapping of physical world events. For example, FOAM's proof of location https://www.foam.space