2008 Woodie Awards
Professor addresses poverty at Chilean spatial data conference
Laila Sholtz-Ames
Issue date: 12/4/06 Section: News
Like other professors at the University of Maine, Harlan Onsrud teaches classes, grades homework and prepares for finals. Onsrud is a professor of Spatial Information Science and Engineering, and is president of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association. Unlike his fellow faculty members, Onsrud recently traveled to Chile to give the opening address at the GSDI 9 Conference in Santiago on Nov. 6.
Onsrud, whose talk was titled "Critical Issues in the Alleviation of Global Poverty and the Relevance of Geographic Data and Tools," lectured to nearly 500 people from more than 60 countries on finding ways to solve global poverty, the goal of GSDI conferences.
While the GSDI conference was hosted in Chile this year, it was designed to travel to different locations around the world, usually going to poor countries so that countries lacking resources and money do not have to travel far. "We want to essentially bring the conference to the poverty-stricken countries," Onsrud said.
Onsrud spoke of how thousands of people die each day due to poverty, and talked about using a diagnostic approach to look at poverty as well as finding ways to locate the poor.
"What is the spatial distribution of household poverty? What is the spatial distribution of power, roads, telecoms, water and sanitation?" Onsrud asked in his speech.
Onsrud gave an overview of the steps of the Millennium Development Goals, detailing ways to reduce and eventually eliminate poverty.
In addition to delivering the opening address, Onsrud served as host and facilitator for many of the sessions, including giving a speech at the United Nations Geographic Information Working Group. This group has technical representatives from 30 UN agencies, as well as funds and programs collaborating to develop information systems that will be more responsive to the needs of other UN agencies and of developing nations generally.
Many countries, such as Chile and others in Latin America, do not have the technology that is needed to succeed, but Onsrud hopes to eliminate this issue.
"We want to find a way to diagnose the specific poverty needs in each country so that we can help create specific technology to end poverty," Onsrud said.
He also spoke about ways to use geographic data so that organizations can target exact problems. "We use data to see what problems exist in what countries. We want to see if poverty is created by transportation issues or agricultural issues, or something else," Onsrud said.
Onsrud returned to Chile the following week to speak at another conference on Intellectual Property Rights at a Catholic University. His talk was called the "Role of the Public Domain and Commons Licensing in Supporting Scientific Research and Technological Innovation."
Onsrud is stepping down as president of the GSDI association, but he will still be involved, as he has been asked by the board to be interim executive director for the global organization.
Onsrud, whose talk was titled "Critical Issues in the Alleviation of Global Poverty and the Relevance of Geographic Data and Tools," lectured to nearly 500 people from more than 60 countries on finding ways to solve global poverty, the goal of GSDI conferences.
While the GSDI conference was hosted in Chile this year, it was designed to travel to different locations around the world, usually going to poor countries so that countries lacking resources and money do not have to travel far. "We want to essentially bring the conference to the poverty-stricken countries," Onsrud said.
Onsrud spoke of how thousands of people die each day due to poverty, and talked about using a diagnostic approach to look at poverty as well as finding ways to locate the poor.
"What is the spatial distribution of household poverty? What is the spatial distribution of power, roads, telecoms, water and sanitation?" Onsrud asked in his speech.
Onsrud gave an overview of the steps of the Millennium Development Goals, detailing ways to reduce and eventually eliminate poverty.
In addition to delivering the opening address, Onsrud served as host and facilitator for many of the sessions, including giving a speech at the United Nations Geographic Information Working Group. This group has technical representatives from 30 UN agencies, as well as funds and programs collaborating to develop information systems that will be more responsive to the needs of other UN agencies and of developing nations generally.
Many countries, such as Chile and others in Latin America, do not have the technology that is needed to succeed, but Onsrud hopes to eliminate this issue.
"We want to find a way to diagnose the specific poverty needs in each country so that we can help create specific technology to end poverty," Onsrud said.
He also spoke about ways to use geographic data so that organizations can target exact problems. "We use data to see what problems exist in what countries. We want to see if poverty is created by transportation issues or agricultural issues, or something else," Onsrud said.
Onsrud returned to Chile the following week to speak at another conference on Intellectual Property Rights at a Catholic University. His talk was called the "Role of the Public Domain and Commons Licensing in Supporting Scientific Research and Technological Innovation."
Onsrud is stepping down as president of the GSDI association, but he will still be involved, as he has been asked by the board to be interim executive director for the global organization.
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