Local support for geospatial students from CUGOS

[Keenan Ganz]

Hello CUGOS-ians!

The board has been discussing some possible uses of organization funds to support local students. We narrowed it down to two ideas at the meeting last week, and wanted to see what the general membership thinks before going forward.

• Open-source summer of code. Each summer, CUGOS will sponsor a student working with a nonprofit organization to develop some piece of open-source geospatial software. The project could be new software, a new feature for existing software, or even updates to documentation. Interested parties will submit a brief proposal outlining who they are, what they will work on, and how the project aligns with the CUGOS mission. At the end of the summer, the student will present their work at a CUGOS meeting.
  
• Student travel grant. On a rolling basis, CUGOS will pay ~$500 to a local student for travel to a conference focusing on open-source geospatial software. The student will have to justify how their travel aligns with the CUGOS mission and will have to submit receipts at the end of travel. Once they return, the student will talk about their experience at a CUGOS meeting.

There are sufficient funds to implement both of these for a couple years. Comments are welcome on this thread or in the form here, and I'll let you know about what happens next!

-Keenan

Keenan Ganz

PhD Student, CUGOS Secretary

Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis Laboratory (RSGAL)

University of Washington