SAEON’s public-private partnership with GIMS set to benefit research and education

Johan Pauw, Head of SAEON (left) and Patrick Mc Kivergn, GIMS Managing Director, share a light moment after signing the collaborative agreement (Picture © Kamal Naicker)

The past few months saw the evolution of an exciting new partnership between the government-funded South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) and a private company called Geographic Information Management Services (GIMS). This has culminated in the signing of a collaborative agreement.

GIMS is the sole provider in South Africa of ARCView software, one of the industry standards for Geographic Information Systems (GIS). After being approached by a SAEON delegation headed by SAEON's Information Management Coordinator Avinash Chuntharpursat, GIMS has agreed to offer SAEON a substantial discount on its products on condition that the software may not be used for commercial purposes. "Since SAEON's objective is to share data and information freely, this was an easy condition to accept," says Avinash.

An order for 12 ARCView 9 licences has been placed with GIMS. The software, which will be deployed at the SAEON nodes, will support SAEON's education outreach and research goals.

A motivation for the discount to SAEON was the highly successful education outreach programme run by SAEON. GIMS and SAEON believe that since GIS has been included in the SA school curriculum it would be feasible for SAEON nodes to use the software in its education outreach programme. SAEON's Education Outreach Coordinator, Sibongile Mokoena, has already benefited from the GIMS partnership by being sponsored by GIMS to attend their ARCView training course for teachers.

"Although it's early days, the ARCView software will put us in a position to offer more on the education outreach front in the field of GIS," says Nikki Stevens, the SAEON Ndlovu Node's GIS/ Database Manager. "We have already started planning for a basic introductory workshop aimed at geography school teachers who have to incorporate GIS into their classes."

On the research front this agreement contributes towards putting SAEON in the position where it can offer fully functional laboratory facilities to students based at the nodes. Moreover, many research students will be working at SAEON nodes for lengthy periods of time and would then have access to the software for research purposes.