July 17th, 2017
GSDI Small Grant Program Awards Announced

The GSDI Association’s call for proposals for the Small Grants Program 2017 stimulated 31 proposals from 27 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, North and South America, covering a wide range of SDI and GI/GIS related project work. Each of the award winners will receive cash support for their proposed projects of US$ 2,500. Some of the proposals, including both award winners and those for whom funding was not available, also requested support from the GISCorps of URISA. These are being notified to GISCorps for any further action that they may be able to take, working within the resources of their excellent volunteer network.

Thanks to the generosity of GSDI’s Members and partners such as URISA GISCorps, GSDI is privileged to be able to support seven of the proposals this year. This year, the cash awards are made from GSDI’s own reserve funds. We seek further Small Grants Program supporters so that others of the more deserving proposals can be funded in 2017. Support funding can be applied to specific projects, countries and regions. Please contact [email protected] if you can help us to continue the program, which has now co-funded 117 projects since 2004.

This year’s GSDI Small Grants Award winners are:

• Chongqing Survey Institute, PR China – “SDI Promotion Actions in Chongqing, PR China”
• National Environment Management Authority, Kenya – “Unlocking Government Environmental Data in Kenya – the KEIN Project”
• Agency for Land Administration and Management, Geodesy and Cartography, Mongolia – “Support for Working Group on Formulating the SDI Act in Mongolia”
• Mongolian Geospatial Association, Mongolia – “Translating the GSDI SDI Cookbook”
• Namibia University of Science and Technology, Namibia – “Metadata Management within SDI Integral Design for Namibia”
• ELSAKA – Lembaga Studi dan Advokasi Kebijakan/Center for Study and Policy Advocacy, Indonesia – “SDI and Spatial Data Training”
• ECOWAS Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE), Cabo Verde – “SDI to Support Sustainable Energy Planning in West Africa”

A big thank you to all who submitted proposals. Continued interest in the Small Grants Program was very encouraging. Over the coming months, GSDI will publish news about the individual projects as they progress at gsdiassociation.org.