US - Ethiopia Planning Visit for Collaborative Training in GIS Applications and Environmental Education

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PI Melinda Laituri will lead a one-week Planning Visit for scientists, university faculty members and resource managers from Colorado State University (CSU) to Addis Ababa University (AAU), and resource management agencies in Ethiopia to facilitate distant training and academic programs in applied geographic information systems (GIS) for natural resource management and environmental conservation. The Planning Visit will be the first step in reaching several long-term goals that include building technological capacities of scientists and resource managers in Ethiopia, developing an environmental curriculum at Colorado State University (CSU) that will focus on developing countries in Africa, and promoting international partnerships between scientists, academics, and resource managers. To foster these goals, it is intended to build a cyberinfrastructure that will deliver information and distant education, house data, and enhance communications. The design and development of this cyberinfrastructure will empower U.S. researchers and educators to advance their work through international collaboration and ensure that future generations of U.S. scientists and engineers gain professional experience beyond our nation's borders early in their careers. The visit will assess needs, develop a long-term strategy, and insure that benefits have a maximum impact. It will allow participants to (1) strengthen partnerships among U.S. and Ethiopian participants, (2) conduct a thorough assessment of the available equipment and computational capacities, (3) evaluate the knowledge and skill levels of the Ethiopian participants, (4) formulate a distance learning GIS training program based on needs and capacity, and (5) identify current environmental and social conditions that can be integrated into distance learning training materials for Ethiopians and curricula for CSU faculty and students targeted at African studies.