Posted on: March 18, 2013
The AiA project, organised the first Colloque for the promotion of GNSS/Galileo for the development of the sub-Saharan Africa in Libreville (Gabon). Around 50 people from Gabon and Cameroon attended the Colloque, among them:
- Government of the Gabonese Republic: Dr Pierre Moukeli, New Technologies Advisor of the President Bongo – Mr Alex Bernard Bongo Odima, President of the National Agency for digital infrastructures and frequencies,
- European Union delegate in Gabon, in Sao Tomé and Principe and in Equatorial Guinea: M. Jean-Eric HOLZAPFEL,
- Universities: Prof. Dr. Pierre Nzinzi, rector of the Omar Bongo University of Libreville – Several universities teachers and researchers,
- European delegates of the EC and the GSA: Bruno Roussel (SUCCESS project) and Simon Chambers (AXYSNAV),
- Scientific community and industry: representative of the Agency for Space Studies and Earth Observation, Companies specialised in topography, hydrography, and IT systems.
- Students at IAI (2 presentations of R&D projects).
This workshop was the opportunity to exchange information and point of views for the use and benefits of GNSS and Galileo for Africa. African people were very interested to have technical information on GNSS and on GNSS programs as many questions rose on these subjects. EC and GSA representatives provided valuable information and views, answering to multiple questions from the attendance.
During the Workshop, many companies and administrations indicated their interest to develop or support GNSS applications for the mass market and for scientific purposes. Nevertheless, the participants raised the fact that the lack of digital maps in Africa is an obstacle to develop some interesting GNSS applications. On the other hand, Earth Observation combined with GNSS applications were seen by participants as powerful enablers for land management applications.
Finally, this workshop raised a high interest to set up GNSS masters in universities and IAI. The scientific background is of very good quality and such initiative would for sure support the development of adapted GNSS applications to Africa specificities and needs. In that context, the teachers and researchers request European help to assist them.
In complement to educational matters, works, results, solutions and/or developments in Africa are lacking budgets to have them presented in international conferences. Thus travel budgets were asked to make the international GNSS community to fully take advantage of African efforts towards GNSS applications development in Africa.