Societal Impacts Committee

This is the homepage of the GSDI Societal Impacts Committee.  We also support the Societal Impacts Committee Discussion List.  If you would like to join the committee, please fill out the registration information to join the discussion list and the chair of the SIC will be in contact.

Welcome to the GSDI Societal Impacts Committee!

We hope that you will engage with us in building stronger resources and opportunities for organizations around the world who are engaged in building strong SDIs - at all levels... national, regional, local, and institutional.

  Carmelle J. Terborgh, PhD, Chair

Gita Urban-Mathieux, Vice Chair, GSDI Small Grants Program

Juna Papajorgji, Vice Chair, Developing Nations Fund

Jeremy Shen, Vice Chair, Capacity Building Resources

CURRENT SPONSORED PROJECTS

GSDI Small Grants Program

Developing Nations Fund

Capacity Building Resources

Industry Funded Grant Programs

BACKGROUND

Benefits of SDI are to foster:

• Economic prosperity:  improving local to national economic competitiveness,
• Effective environmental management: addressing local to global environmental quality and change,
• Good governance: increasing efficiency, effectiveness, transparency,and equity in all levels of government,
• Societal advancement: advancing the health, safety and social wellbeing of humankind in all nations.

As established by the GSDI Bylaws:

The Societal Impacts Committee explores the organizational/institutional frameworks within which spatial data infrastructures are developed locally and across individual nations, multi-nation regions and globally. The Committee encourages dialogue and interaction with respect to varying approaches and explores SDI models, approaches, and experiences with the goal to enhance cooperation among nations in sharing spatial content, including spatial data, spatially-enabled services, geoprocessing models, etc.

In transforming recommendations into action, this committee shall advise the Board on all matters that involve the GSDI Association with regard to funded projects, including grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts, in order to accomplish the greatest societal benefit. Funded projects are defined as any payments to the GSDI Association that oblige the GSDI Association to provide services to the organization providing the funding. The GSDI Association Board retains the final authority over such funded activities, cooperative agreements and contracts.

The committee shall be responsible for dealing with all sources of externally funded activities for the GSDI Association. The Committee shall:

• Communicate with funding agencies to determine or develop requests for proposals or scope of work for GSDI Association projects,

• Solicit professionals from GSDI Association member institutions to complete this work,

• Accomplish proposal peer review processes if required or desired, and

• Monitor such contracts to ensure completion in a timely manner in adherence to schedules agreed upon with the funding agency.

The chair and vice-chair of the Societal Impacts Committee, as well as the Executive Committee of the GSDI Association, are ineligible, as individuals, to apply for any project funding administered by the Societal Impacts Committee during their term and for six months after their last date of service on the Committee, whether by resignation, expiration of term, or otherwise. This ban also includes the chair of any sponsored projects subcommittee processing such grants.

Seeking Partnerships: The GSDI Association is a non-profit organization seeking cooperation and coordination with other organizations in applying spatial data infrastructure concepts and approaches in addressing important worldwide needs. Projects may span from local to global levels.

This committee is looking for new members. Please contact us if you would like to join our efforts!

If you have ideas to share, please join us!