GIS Role in National Development to Take Center Stage at Evening Encounter

Penplusbytes’ New Media Hub will on Thursday, November 26^th 2015, host it’s 4^th in the series of Evening Encounters with Mr. Foster Mensah, the Executive Director of the Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Services (CERSGIS) of the University of Ghana, Legon. He will be sharing with participants the Role and Importance of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Mapping in Ghana’s National Development Agenda. RSVP Now to join (http://ow.ly/UQhzI).

In spite of its short history, ample evidence is emerging of Geographic Information System (GIS) contributions to knowledge creation for development planning, management, and policy formulation in Ghana. This assertion about GIS will be further explored and critically assessed by CERSGIS through its Executive Director when he takes his turn to engage stakeholders. The Evening Encounter event will court the participation of technical and development experts across all sectors of Ghana including students and members of Academia.

Kwami Ahiabenu, II, Executive Director of Penplusbytes, contented that the GIS community is playing and will continue to play important role in development planning and resource allocation in Ghana. “However, not much of an information is out there except within a close knit of technologists. This Evening Encounter is an apt opportunity to shed more light on the importance of GIS applications in aiding Ghana’s growth,” he added.

Globally, the enormous potential of GIS applications to circumventing a wide range of multi-sectorial development challenges is just now beginning to be realized. Presently, public and private sector players worldwide are devising innovative ways to harnessing the data integration and spatial visualization power of GIS into their projects with many of these companies and organizations spanning a broad spectrum of national development priority sectors.

As part of his delivery and interactions, Mr. Foster Mensah, a Geodetic Engineer and head of CERSGIS will also take participants through highlights of what the Centre is about, their successes and how these are advancing national development.

RSVP today to join other development oriented individuals, students, technologists, policy makers, organisations and institutions at this information and knowledge sharing session.


ABOUT

Penplusbytes is a not-for-profit organization driving change through innovations in three key areas: using new digital technologies to enable good governance and accountability, new media and innovations, and driving oversight for effective utilisation of mining, oil and gas revenue and resources.

CERSGIS is a self-supporting organisation established by the University of Ghana and the Environmental protection Agency (EPA) providing GIS and Remote Sensing services to various government, non-government institutions and the private sectors.