FOSS4G Pasifika Roadmap: Then/Now/Beyond
Liava'a, Edwin
Edwin's talk was the second keynote at FOSS4G SotM Oceania 2019, organised by OSGeo Oceania and held at The National Library in Wellington, New Zealand from November 12-15 2019. FOSS4G SotM Oceania is the coming together of Oceania's geospatial open source and open data community - with four days of workshops, presentations, a community sprint and social events.
 It's great to be here. Finally, after all these years, it's been a long time coming and I'm involved in the first 4G conference. So like, my talk will be about a little brief history of how we as Pacific Islanders got involved with first 4G and more like a roadmap from then to now and where we see it going. So without further ado, this love affair that we've had with first 4G is kind of like not exactly 998, more like 997. There was a project funded by European Union, Long Beach 3, for a GIS project for utilities. And most importantly, enough at the time, I was with a power utility. And back then, what we had, like we had some paper maps, we built, we had our own grid, like 200 meters by 200 meters, and we had some data inside a database, DBase 3 and DBase 4. And we wanted kind of like to link these two. So with this project, we were fortunate enough then to kind of get involved with GIS. So in 997, the project started and I was more or less the pilot of the project for Donald Lickford at the time. So why, why force 4G? Because like at the time, it didn't exist. But for us, as Pacific Islanders, if you can look in our customs and our traditions, we like to share stuff. Basically, we just wanted to share knowledge and common solutions to common problems. So the package was deployed with this just for utilities with web info. And luckily enough, it comes with an end-end web basic that you can run some scripts to customize web info. So we developed some customization. And in order for this project to be transferable, we had to share the gold base. So in 1998, myself and another colleague of mine and some of the people in the community that we started, basically from the bio utility community, we wrote a program manual on that basic that we shared with all the other Pacific Islands. So you can find it here online, if you have an interested in looking at it. But this is the beginning of, for myself, free as in freedom for open source software for geospatial application. So that's like how it's all started. So from 1998, 7, 1998, unfortunately enough, by 1999, 2000, the product funding ended. We kept on sustaining the solution. We adopted it in Fiji, Solomon Islands, BNG, and in Samoa, I'll talk a bit later, in 2007. But then the bio utility company I worked for was privatized. Somehow I was again fortunate enough to get to go back to academia. So from then, what happened here? From that period, from then up to 2009, basically, I was in academia, most of the guys kept working with the project and I went back home and finally got another chance to go back and do GI stuff. But this time with the South Pacific Geoscience Commission, and it's now SBC. So we started working on a project in 2008 called HighGos project. And this was, I think, most impact breakthrough that we had with first four G solutions for the Pacific Islands. With this project, I think the people from New York are here. They have this real cool tool called TIDERA or Time-Demanded Database that we use to archive all the hydrological data. So oh, what happened here? And we've tied it up, like I said, this is a real breakthrough that we had with first four G. In 2008, I realized that some of the workers at SOPEC were using quantum GIS and they were just using it for the print composer to print some maps. So at the time, I started looking into quantum GIS and using it. So in 2009, 2008, two good things happened. Got introduced to quantum GIS and also to post GIS. So what we did with the data that we had in TIDERA, we got like the deal of library files from New York, and we also get to link to the pull out the data from TIDERA. We put it onto our CSV file and we pump it up to post GIS and we pull it out into quantum GIS and display it on our maps. And this was our model back then. This is our design. What we designed at SOPEC at the time, we wanted to keep our table data separate from our spatial data. So the original approach of the methodology before was like we had like our table data in Maypen, so we kept all the tabular data in excess. But as time went through, people wanted more enterprise solutions. So you need to have like a client server environment. So in 2009, that's how we got involved with post GIS. So we have post GIS in the backend with Postgres and we have our front end for in quantum GIS. So this was the design we had then. From TIDERA, we have the time series data. We put it out using the library, the DLL dynamic library and ODBC and brilliant access database. We pumped it from there to Postgres and post GIS and then we pulled it out using quantum GIS. So at this time, and this was this is quite a breakthrough that 2009 GIS we wanted to see conference in SUVA. After the conference, when we had the conference dinner, some of the guys from history told me to be very careful. So this became personal for me then. So I was totally driven deep caring only because of GIS and promoting it and advocating it in the Pacific Islands. So let's start it out. So I'm going to switch back to my presentation. So that was 2009. So 2009 to 2012, we deployed, we looked after 14 countries that are databases and also GIS for rainfall data and yeah, riverfall and river flow and rainfall data. In 2012, I decided to move on on my own and start to have a startup called Change Spatial. So I was doing a course on the Pacific Islands and this is my presentation then on how we get involved with more like advocating for 4G. But the best thing happened in 2012 that we got involved with OSG. We more or less the community then wanted to start with thinking about having a chapter of the Pacific Islands. So mainly because I think you also don't know why we are all here. So why is 4G? Maybe you are in the wrong country. So yeah. So that's the thing that happened in 2012. We got involved with 4G. So we started up a chapter. Nineth of November in Fiji. But again, this is something we can discuss with the Australian chapter, the AGM. It's like forking a software. I'm going to develop stuff on Linux and stuff. If you're going to have a distribution, if you fork it out, you're going to have a community of people to support you. And somehow this worked out well in 2012. We had these people interested in it. So you can see there's a list of people in it. But suddenly, I'll talk about it a little bit more. So like from 2012, you can see we deployed a GIS server with LISMAP and all this stuff with mines and minerals in Solomon Islands, SIA, Solomon's electricity authority, and also with BNG Power. Full-fledged enterprise solution using QGIS and the back-end post-GIS and on the front-end QGIS and LISMAP for web mapping. So in 2013, we keep caring on doing this. So 13, 14, 15 got involved with something you might know, Vasity. She was with the Sukha Industries Tribunal. They had a full-fledged open-source solution for mapping SukhaGain farming and crushing all these things. 16, still vibrant. And then 17, I got a chance to start working for the University of Fiji, not as directly involved with GIS, but as more like on the IT side of things. But you see, my passion for forceful G never left me. So I kind of like got together with one of the professors that had the science department to have like a GFO lab because he was also interested in forceful G as well. So that's my chapter. Sorry, I kind of like jump ahead. In 2013, SBC came out strong with forceful G. They did some really cool stuff with forceful G. They basically do a lot of stuff with GeoNode. They're using quantum GIS as well. And a colleague of mine, I think he's still the geospatial architect for SBC, Mr. Chajin-Zu-Shin. This is part of his presentation. More or less the work that's been done by SBC that's involved with open source and forceful G. So you can just read through this, like from 1994, the mail system up to 1996, with USB got involved. So like migrant up to 2000, up to 2013. So like you can see like SBC is also quite instrumental in promoting forceful G stuff in the Pacific region as well. So that's what the 2013, as I mentioned earlier, I got to involve with the University of Fiji and we talked to OSGEO and also the Geo4O to have a Geo4O lab in the University of Fiji. So this is the University of Fiji site. We donated a server that we had redundant on our stack and we put it in and hosted it with Geo4O lab. But like most things in my life, like my love for open source software for Geo4O has been over 20 years. I've been through a couple of marriages. So just like what happened here like four years, it started like going out smoothly. Then all of a sudden there was like a political shift in the University and somehow this professor was relieved of his duties and the project started to go down and somehow I was fortunate again enough to get involved with some work back at home in Togawa where I was born. To me who I am now, I'm more like the runner for this somebody capable company as a CEO. And like most things I had to leave University of Fiji and I don't know if somebody has taken over this project. Somebody was supposed to take over it but as I said, like the initiative that we had for Pacific chapter for West Geo, somehow people just lost interest in it and that's why like we need to approach Oceania chapter. We become the smaller, smaller young brother of Oceania chapter in the Pacific Islands. So 2018 I started off as the runner or the CEO for Togawa People Cup Limited. We are the custodian of the submarine cable that connects Togawa to the Southern Cross and we are the wholesaler of internet capacity for Togawa. You want to talk about that kind of stuff again and talk about it later. But then like I fell in love with another technology then again last year. So like I started getting involved with, we wanted to, we talked with, yeah there was this other guy who works for from fisheries in Solomon Islands. He wanted more like a solution for something for tracing two or nine other stuff. And so somehow it took us to proof of location in blockchain. So in 2018 we did, I did a presentation for the original blockchain tech cap in Fiji funded by the US Embassy and USAID. More on the telco side of things, right? But then somehow I always think about just spatial stuff. So I kept on reading about it and there's some sort of like disruptive relationship that we can use blockchain and just spatial tools together. So if you do a bit of reading about proof of location in blockchain I just want to bring it down. So on the blockchain ecosystem you have some protocols like form, helium, platinum, xyl for mapping and proof of location for smart contracts. At the moment I'm currently working on getting my certification on to be a blockchain developer by January. So these are the kind of stuff that I would be, that I'm more like moving towards of my career with first 4G and just vessel stuff. So like if you're interested about that we can talk about it later but this is how I see the technology moving. So like with just spatial and first 4G and also with the blockchain technology. With the TLTs there are other stuff like Hashgraph and all those other things. But for the moment this is where I see the technology moving. So if anyone is interested in that we can talk about it later. So 2019. 2018 I was supposed to be in Melbourne but somehow my visa got a week later so I didn't have the chance to go. So finally I'm here and we are also a part of the project that I've been doing working on is like I'm more like I didn't fork it. I'm more like I just work on top of Ubuntu with another version of Ubuntu and created a distribution for Pacific Islands. And I also put all the just spatial stuff in it with quantum GIS and all this. So like you can if you're interested in that you can find the distribution online. You can download it, test it out. It's quite cool. It's very light. And yeah. All the features and stuff. So there's like more like this. The latest development I've done as far as just spatial tools is concerned with first 4G and also very, very like proactive in pushing for work with blockchain as well. So what do we see beyond 2019? As explained earlier on we moved in a direction that we wanted to have an established more like a chapter for OSG for Pacific Islands. But since we don't have the main power to sustain that and I've seen it because like it started lacking towards like last year and this year. We have some people in the community that are here now and we have a city that very, very instrumental in sorry, what you and where we see 2020 and beyond. So we made a bit for first 4G to be hosted in Suva Fiji in 2020. And we're hoping to see you all there. Some of the local organizing committee, the coaches is Vasity and Jonah. And Nick Rawlings unit from USB, Iron Minute, Elizabeth is in it, Dan, Julie, Joeri, Namaia and Celestia. So we would like to invite you all if you have want to see the Fiji and the Pacific Islands please come over to the Suva for first 4G 2020. Thank you. Are there any questions for Ebon? Kiora Edwin, thank you so much for the wonderful and very inspiring presentation. I'm David from another island in the Philippines on the other side. I would just want to ask you about what do you think are in your career which is very colorful, very I see how you try to navigate mess realities. What do you think are the common issues that you faced in making OSU OpenSuite Lab grow in the Pacific? If you can name at least the common issues that you had to face each time you were trying to push for the proliferation of our OSU and etc. I think resistance to change in the Pacific is quite common especially like if you were taught in a certain platform and also like another aspect of that like we were discussing last night as well we're great and yesterday more like I said like our fellow countrymen don't trust us kind of like that and like they'll if you walk into a room with if you are white guy and I'm me they're more likely to take to listen to you so like and also like some people they don't want to share data I mean like we like to share solutions but then some people are quite monkeying with the data they like ownership of their own data so like this is why part of the reason why we promote first for G and OpenData because like we want to see this happen in the Pacific as well so yeah resistance to change is quite common in the Pacific. Thanks. The Pacific Islands are generally caring and cheering communities and there are a number of organizations and aid agencies that help collate and collect data and information for the Pacific. There are these are held by custodians such as government departments and other organizations and there can be a reluctance to share that information. What do you think needs to be how can assistance be provided and what are your thoughts on the data sharing and more towards open source and maybe what this community how this community can help. Like as far as this community is concerned I think that has been the breakthrough that we have in the Pacific especially with people like the way I see it it's going to be like a bottoms up approach whereby you you have a success story from especially with the crossroads people that really do the work like the technicians like the my experience with my experience since 90s up to the 20s 20,000 as well up up to now as well. If I want to share data if I go to the top guy I have resistance so what I do is like we build this community and technical people share with themselves so even though like even though like this is protocol you're not supposed to share that data but they like somehow my I still working for the Tonga Power Board at the time somehow I got to work together with a guy from Tonga Water Board and we shared the data so we overlaid our data and then we showed them so like oh where did you get that from no I got the data from Tonga Water Board did you have a problem no but they saw the solution they also like this is how it works so like for my for my for my experience and what I say we keep the community vibrant and we work from a bottoms up approach and have success stories and then we have success stories people on top will find your proof.
 It's great to be here. Finally, after all these years, it's been a long time coming  and I'm involved in the first 4G conference. So like, my talk will be about a little brief  history of how we as Pacific Islanders got involved with first 4G and more like a roadmap  from then to now and where we see it going. So without further ado, this love affair that  we've had with first 4G is kind of like not exactly 998, more like 997. There was a project  funded by European Union, Long Beach 3, for a GIS project for utilities. And most importantly,  enough at the time, I was with a power utility. And back then, what we had, like we had some  paper maps, we built, we had our own grid, like 200 meters by 200 meters, and we had some data  inside a database, DBase 3 and DBase 4. And we wanted kind of like to link these two. So with  this project, we were fortunate enough then to kind of get involved with GIS. So in 997,  the project started and I was more or less the pilot of the project for Donald Lickford  at the time. So why, why force 4G? Because like at the time, it didn't exist. But for us,  as Pacific Islanders, if you can look in our customs and our traditions, we like to share stuff.  Basically, we just wanted to share knowledge and common solutions to common problems.  So the package was deployed with this just for utilities with web info. And luckily enough,  it comes with an end-end web basic that you can run some scripts to customize web info. So  we developed some customization. And in order for this project to be transferable, we had to share  the gold base. So in 1998, myself and another colleague of mine and some of the people in the  community that we started, basically from the bio utility community, we wrote a program manual on  that basic that we shared with all the other Pacific Islands. So you can find it here online,  if you have an interested in looking at it. But this is the beginning of, for myself,  free as in freedom for open source software for geospatial application. So that's  like how it's all started. So from 1998, 7, 1998, unfortunately enough, by 1999, 2000,  the product funding ended. We kept on sustaining the solution. We adopted it in Fiji, Solomon Islands,  BNG, and in Samoa, I'll talk a bit later, in 2007. But then the bio utility company I worked for  was privatized. Somehow I was again fortunate enough to get to go back to academia. So from then,  what happened here? From that period, from then up to 2009, basically, I was in academia,  most of the guys kept working with the project and I went back home and finally got another chance  to go back and do GI stuff. But this time with the South Pacific Geoscience Commission, and it's now  SBC. So we started working on a project in 2008 called HighGos project. And this was, I think,  most impact breakthrough that we had with first four G solutions for the Pacific Islands.  With this project, I think the people from New York are here. They have this real cool tool called  TIDERA or Time-Demanded Database that we use to archive all the hydrological data. So  oh, what happened here?  And we've tied it up, like I said, this is a real breakthrough that we had with first four G.  In 2008, I realized that some of the workers at SOPEC were using quantum GIS and they were just  using it for the print composer to print some maps. So at the time, I started looking into  quantum GIS and using it. So in 2009, 2008, two good things happened. Got introduced to quantum  GIS and also to post GIS. So what we did with the data that we had in TIDERA, we got like the deal  of library files from New York, and we also get to link to the pull out the data from TIDERA.  We put it onto our CSV file and we pump it up to post GIS and we pull it out  into quantum GIS and display it on our maps. And this was our model back then.  This is our design. What we designed at SOPEC at the time, we wanted to keep our table data  separate from our spatial data. So the original approach of the methodology before was like we  had like our table data in Maypen, so we kept all the tabular data in excess. But as time  went through, people wanted more enterprise solutions. So you need to have like a client  server environment. So in 2009, that's how we got involved with post GIS. So we have post GIS  in the backend with Postgres and we have our front end for in quantum GIS. So this was the  design we had then. From TIDERA, we have the time series data. We put it out using the library,  the DLL dynamic library and ODBC and brilliant access database. We pumped it from there to  Postgres and post GIS and then we pulled it out using quantum GIS. So at this time, and this was  this is quite a breakthrough that 2009 GIS we wanted to see conference in SUVA. After the  conference, when we had the conference dinner, some of the guys from history told me to be very  careful. So this became personal for me then. So I was totally driven deep caring only because  of GIS and promoting it and advocating it in the Pacific Islands. So let's start it out. So I'm  going to switch back to my presentation. So that was 2009. So 2009 to 2012, we deployed, we looked  after 14 countries that are databases and also GIS for rainfall data and yeah, riverfall and  river flow and rainfall data. In 2012, I decided to move on on my own and start to have a startup  called Change Spatial. So I was doing a course on the Pacific Islands and this is my presentation  then on how we get involved with more like advocating for 4G. But the best thing happened  in 2012 that we got involved with OSG. We more or less the community then wanted to start with  thinking about having a chapter of the Pacific Islands. So mainly because I think you also  don't know why we are all here. So why is 4G? Maybe you are in the wrong country. So yeah.  So that's the thing that happened in 2012. We got involved with 4G. So we started up a chapter.  Nineth of November in Fiji. But again, this is something we can discuss with the  Australian chapter, the AGM. It's like forking a software. I'm going to develop stuff on Linux  and stuff. If you're going to have a distribution, if you fork it out, you're going to have a  community of people to support you. And somehow this worked out well in 2012. We had these people  interested in it. So you can see there's a list of people in it. But suddenly, I'll talk about  it a little bit more. So like from 2012, you can see we deployed a GIS server with LISMAP  and all this stuff with mines and minerals in Solomon Islands, SIA, Solomon's electricity  authority, and also with BNG Power. Full-fledged enterprise solution using QGIS and the back-end  post-GIS and on the front-end QGIS and LISMAP for web mapping. So in 2013, we keep caring on doing  this. So 13, 14, 15 got involved with something you might know, Vasity. She was with the Sukha  Industries Tribunal. They had a full-fledged open-source solution for mapping SukhaGain farming  and crushing all these things. 16, still vibrant. And then 17, I got a chance to start working for  the University of Fiji, not as directly involved with GIS, but as more like on the IT side of things.  But you see, my passion for forceful G never left me. So I kind of like got together with one of the  professors that had the science department to have like a GFO lab because he was also  interested in forceful G as well. So that's my chapter. Sorry, I kind of like jump ahead.  In 2013, SBC came out strong with forceful G. They did some really cool stuff with forceful G.  They basically do a lot of stuff with GeoNode. They're using quantum GIS as well. And a colleague  of mine, I think he's still the geospatial architect for SBC, Mr. Chajin-Zu-Shin. This is part of  his presentation. More or less the work that's been done by SBC that's involved with open source  and forceful G. So you can just read through this, like from 1994, the mail system up to 1996,  with USB got involved. So like migrant up to 2000, up to 2013. So like you can see like SBC is also  quite instrumental in promoting forceful G stuff in the Pacific region as well.  So that's what the 2013, as I mentioned earlier, I got to involve with the University of Fiji  and we talked to OSGEO and also the Geo4O to have a Geo4O lab in the University of Fiji.  So this is the University of Fiji site. We donated a server that we had redundant on our  stack and we put it in and hosted it with Geo4O lab. But like most things in my life,  like my love for open source software for Geo4O has been over 20 years. I've been  through a couple of marriages. So just like what happened here like four years, it started like  going out smoothly. Then all of a sudden there was like a political shift in the University and  somehow this professor was relieved of his duties and the project started to go down and somehow  I was fortunate again enough to get involved with some work back at home in Togawa where I was born.  To me who I am now, I'm more like the runner for this somebody capable company as a CEO.  And like most things I had to leave University of Fiji and I don't know if somebody has taken  over this project. Somebody was supposed to take over it but as I said, like the initiative that  we had for Pacific chapter for West Geo, somehow people just lost interest in it and that's why  like we need to approach Oceania chapter. We become the smaller, smaller young brother of  Oceania chapter in the Pacific Islands.  So 2018 I started off as the runner or the CEO for Togawa People Cup Limited.  We are the custodian of the submarine cable that connects Togawa to the Southern Cross  and we are the wholesaler of internet capacity for Togawa. You want to talk about that kind of  stuff again and talk about it later. But then like I fell in love with another technology then again  last year. So like I started getting involved with, we wanted to, we talked with, yeah there was this  other guy who works for from fisheries in Solomon Islands. He wanted more like a solution for something  for tracing two or nine other stuff. And so somehow it took us to proof of location in blockchain.  So in 2018 we did, I did a presentation for the original blockchain tech cap in Fiji funded by  the US Embassy and USAID. More on the telco side of things, right? But then somehow I always think  about just spatial stuff. So I kept on reading about it and there's some sort of like disruptive  relationship that we can use blockchain and just spatial tools together. So  if you do a bit of reading about proof of location in blockchain  I just want to bring it down. So on the blockchain ecosystem you have some protocols like form,  helium, platinum, xyl for mapping and proof of location for smart contracts. At the moment  I'm currently working on getting my certification on to be a blockchain developer by January.  So these are the kind of stuff that I would be, that I'm more like moving towards  of my career with first 4G and just vessel stuff. So like if you're interested about that we can  talk about it later but this is how I see the technology moving. So like with just spatial and  first 4G and also with the blockchain technology. With the TLTs there are other stuff like  Hashgraph and all those other things. But for the moment this is where I see the technology moving.  So if anyone is interested in that we can talk about it later.  So 2019.  2018 I was supposed to be in Melbourne but somehow my visa got a week later so I didn't  have the chance to go. So finally I'm here and we are also a part of the project that I've been  doing working on is like I'm more like I didn't fork it. I'm more like I just work on top of  Ubuntu with another version of Ubuntu and created a distribution for Pacific Islands.  And I also put all the just spatial stuff in it with quantum GIS and all this. So like you can  if you're interested in that you can find the distribution online. You can download it,  test it out. It's quite cool. It's very light.  And yeah.  All the features and stuff. So there's like more like this. The latest development I've done  as far as just spatial tools is concerned with first 4G and also very, very  like proactive in pushing for work with blockchain as well.  So what do we see beyond 2019? As explained earlier on we moved in a direction that we  wanted to have an established more like a chapter for OSG for Pacific Islands.  But since we don't have the main power to sustain that and I've seen it because like  it started lacking towards like last year and this year. We have some people in the community  that are here now and we have a city that very, very instrumental in sorry, what you  and where we see 2020 and beyond. So we made a bit for first 4G to be hosted in Suva Fiji in 2020.  And we're hoping to see you all there.  Some of the local organizing committee, the coaches is Vasity and Jonah. And Nick  Rawlings unit from USB, Iron Minute, Elizabeth is in it, Dan, Julie, Joeri, Namaia and Celestia.  So we would like to invite you all if you have want to see the Fiji and the Pacific Islands  please come over to the Suva for first 4G 2020. Thank you.  Are there any questions for Ebon?  Kiora Edwin, thank you so much for the wonderful and very inspiring presentation.  I'm David from another island in the Philippines on the other side.  I would just want to ask you about what do you think are in your career which is very  colorful, very I see how you try to navigate mess realities. What do you think are the  common issues that you faced in making OSU OpenSuite Lab grow in the Pacific? If you can name at least  the common issues that you had to face each time you were trying to push for the proliferation of  our OSU and etc. I think resistance to change in the Pacific is quite common especially like  if you were taught in a certain platform and also like another aspect of that like we were  discussing last night as well we're great and yesterday more like I said like our fellow  countrymen don't trust us kind of like that and like they'll if you walk into a room with if you  are white guy and I'm me they're more likely to take to listen to you so like and also like some  people they don't want to share data I mean like we like to share solutions but then some people are  quite monkeying with the data they like ownership of their own data so like this is why part of the  reason why we promote first for G and OpenData because like we want to see this happen in the  Pacific as well so yeah resistance to change is quite common in the Pacific.  Thanks. The Pacific Islands are generally caring and cheering communities and there are a number  of organizations and aid agencies that help collate and collect data and information for the Pacific.  There are these are held by custodians such as government departments and other organizations  and there can be a reluctance to share that information. What do you think needs to  be how can assistance be provided and what are your thoughts on the data sharing and more towards  open source and maybe what this community how this community can help. Like as far as this  community is concerned I think that has been the breakthrough that we have in the Pacific  especially with people like the way I see it it's going to be like a bottoms up approach whereby you  you have a success story from especially with the crossroads people that really do the work like the  technicians like the my experience with my experience since 90s up to the 20s 20,000 as well  up up to now as well. If I want to share data if I go to the top guy I have resistance so what I do  is like we build this community and technical people share with themselves so even though like  even though like this is protocol you're not supposed to share that data but they like somehow  my I still working for the Tonga Power Board at the time somehow I got to work together with a guy  from Tonga Water Board and we shared the data so we overlaid our data and then we showed them so like  oh where did you get that from no I got the data from Tonga Water Board did you have a problem  no but they saw the solution they also like this is how it works so like for my for my for my  experience and what I say we keep the community vibrant and we work from a bottoms up approach  and have success stories and then we have success stories people on top will find your proof.
Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_0_719.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_720_4727.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_4728_6251.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_6252_6407.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_6408_6455.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_6456_6731.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_6732_10019.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_10020_10103.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_10104_10247.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_10248_10787.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_10788_12635.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_12636_13271.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_13272_13463.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_13464_14303.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_14304_14711.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_14712_16163.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_16164_17435.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_17436_17603.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_17604_21959.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_21960_22055.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_22056_22115.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_22116_23711.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_23712_24551.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_24552_24647.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_24648_24911.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_24912_26579.png Edwin_Liava_a_-_FOSS4G_Pasifika_Roadmap__Then_Now_Beyond_JurahRVbjVQ_26580_33837.png
It's great to be here. Finally, after all these years, it's been a long time coming and I'm involved in the first 4G conference. So like, my talk will be about a little brief history of how we as Pacific Islanders got involved with first 4G and more like a roadmap from then to now and where we see it going. So without further ado, this love affair that we've had with first 4G is kind of like not exactly 998, more like 997. There was a project funded by European Union, Long Beach 3, for a GIS project for utilities. And most importantly, enough at the time, I was with a power utility. And back then, what we had, like we had some paper maps, we built, we had our own grid, like 200 meters by 200 meters, and we had some data inside a database, DBase 3 and DBase 4. And we wanted kind of like to link these two. So with this project, we were fortunate enough then to kind of get involved with GIS. So in 997, the project started and I was more or less the pilot of the project for Donald Lickford at the time. So why, why force 4G? Because like at the time, it didn't exist. But for us, as Pacific Islanders, if you can look in our customs and our traditions, we like to share stuff. Basically, we just wanted to share knowledge and common solutions to common problems. So the package was deployed with this just for utilities with web info. And luckily enough, it comes with an end-end web basic that you can run some scripts to customize web info. So we developed some customization. And in order for this project to be transferable, we had to share the gold base. So in 1998, myself and another colleague of mine and some of the people in the community that we started, basically from the bio utility community, we wrote a program manual on that basic that we shared with all the other Pacific Islands. So you can find it here online, if you have an interested in looking at it. But this is the beginning of, for myself, free as in freedom for open source software for geospatial application. So that's like how it's all started. So from 1998, 7, 1998, unfortunately enough, by 1999, 2000, the product funding ended. We kept on sustaining the solution. We adopted it in Fiji, Solomon Islands, BNG, and in Samoa, I'll talk a bit later, in 2007. But then the bio utility company I worked for was privatized. Somehow I was again fortunate enough to get to go back to academia. So from then, what happened here? From that period, from then up to 2009, basically, I was in academia, most of the guys kept working with the project and I went back home and finally got another chance to go back and do GI stuff. But this time with the South Pacific Geoscience Commission, and it's now SBC. So we started working on a project in 2008 called HighGos project. And this was, I think, most impact breakthrough that we had with first four G solutions for the Pacific Islands. With this project, I think the people from New York are here. They have this real cool tool called TIDERA or Time-Demanded Database that we use to archive all the hydrological data. So oh, what happened here? And we've tied it up, like I said, this is a real breakthrough that we had with first four G. In 2008, I realized that some of the workers at SOPEC were using quantum GIS and they were just using it for the print composer to print some maps. So at the time, I started looking into quantum GIS and using it. So in 2009, 2008, two good things happened. Got introduced to quantum GIS and also to post GIS. So what we did with the data that we had in TIDERA, we got like the deal of library files from New York, and we also get to link to the pull out the data from TIDERA. We put it onto our CSV file and we pump it up to post GIS and we pull it out into quantum GIS and display it on our maps. And this was our model back then. This is our design. What we designed at SOPEC at the time, we wanted to keep our table data separate from our spatial data. So the original approach of the methodology before was like we had like our table data in Maypen, so we kept all the tabular data in excess. But as time went through, people wanted more enterprise solutions. So you need to have like a client server environment. So in 2009, that's how we got involved with post GIS. So we have post GIS in the backend with Postgres and we have our front end for in quantum GIS. So this was the design we had then. From TIDERA, we have the time series data. We put it out using the library, the DLL dynamic library and ODBC and brilliant access database. We pumped it from there to Postgres and post GIS and then we pulled it out using quantum GIS. So at this time, and this was this is quite a breakthrough that 2009 GIS we wanted to see conference in SUVA. After the conference, when we had the conference dinner, some of the guys from history told me to be very careful. So this became personal for me then. So I was totally driven deep caring only because of GIS and promoting it and advocating it in the Pacific Islands. So let's start it out. So I'm going to switch back to my presentation. So that was 2009. So 2009 to 2012, we deployed, we looked after 14 countries that are databases and also GIS for rainfall data and yeah, riverfall and river flow and rainfall data. In 2012, I decided to move on on my own and start to have a startup called Change Spatial. So I was doing a course on the Pacific Islands and this is my presentation then on how we get involved with more like advocating for 4G. But the best thing happened in 2012 that we got involved with OSG. We more or less the community then wanted to start with thinking about having a chapter of the Pacific Islands. So mainly because I think you also don't know why we are all here. So why is 4G? Maybe you are in the wrong country. So yeah. So that's the thing that happened in 2012. We got involved with 4G. So we started up a chapter. Nineth of November in Fiji. But again, this is something we can discuss with the Australian chapter, the AGM. It's like forking a software. I'm going to develop stuff on Linux and stuff. If you're going to have a distribution, if you fork it out, you're going to have a community of people to support you. And somehow this worked out well in 2012. We had these people interested in it. So you can see there's a list of people in it. But suddenly, I'll talk about it a little bit more. So like from 2012, you can see we deployed a GIS server with LISMAP and all this stuff with mines and minerals in Solomon Islands, SIA, Solomon's electricity authority, and also with BNG Power. Full-fledged enterprise solution using QGIS and the back-end post-GIS and on the front-end QGIS and LISMAP for web mapping. So in 2013, we keep caring on doing this. So 13, 14, 15 got involved with something you might know, Vasity. She was with the Sukha Industries Tribunal. They had a full-fledged open-source solution for mapping SukhaGain farming and crushing all these things. 16, still vibrant. And then 17, I got a chance to start working for the University of Fiji, not as directly involved with GIS, but as more like on the IT side of things. But you see, my passion for forceful G never left me. So I kind of like got together with one of the professors that had the science department to have like a GFO lab because he was also interested in forceful G as well. So that's my chapter. Sorry, I kind of like jump ahead. In 2013, SBC came out strong with forceful G. They did some really cool stuff with forceful G. They basically do a lot of stuff with GeoNode. They're using quantum GIS as well. And a colleague of mine, I think he's still the geospatial architect for SBC, Mr. Chajin-Zu-Shin. This is part of his presentation. More or less the work that's been done by SBC that's involved with open source and forceful G. So you can just read through this, like from 1994, the mail system up to 1996, with USB got involved. So like migrant up to 2000, up to 2013. So like you can see like SBC is also quite instrumental in promoting forceful G stuff in the Pacific region as well. So that's what the 2013, as I mentioned earlier, I got to involve with the University of Fiji and we talked to OSGEO and also the Geo4O to have a Geo4O lab in the University of Fiji. So this is the University of Fiji site. We donated a server that we had redundant on our stack and we put it in and hosted it with Geo4O lab. But like most things in my life, like my love for open source software for Geo4O has been over 20 years. I've been through a couple of marriages. So just like what happened here like four years, it started like going out smoothly. Then all of a sudden there was like a political shift in the University and somehow this professor was relieved of his duties and the project started to go down and somehow I was fortunate again enough to get involved with some work back at home in Togawa where I was born. To me who I am now, I'm more like the runner for this somebody capable company as a CEO. And like most things I had to leave University of Fiji and I don't know if somebody has taken over this project. Somebody was supposed to take over it but as I said, like the initiative that we had for Pacific chapter for West Geo, somehow people just lost interest in it and that's why like we need to approach Oceania chapter. We become the smaller, smaller young brother of Oceania chapter in the Pacific Islands. So 2018 I started off as the runner or the CEO for Togawa People Cup Limited. We are the custodian of the submarine cable that connects Togawa to the Southern Cross and we are the wholesaler of internet capacity for Togawa. You want to talk about that kind of stuff again and talk about it later. But then like I fell in love with another technology then again last year. So like I started getting involved with, we wanted to, we talked with, yeah there was this other guy who works for from fisheries in Solomon Islands. He wanted more like a solution for something for tracing two or nine other stuff. And so somehow it took us to proof of location in blockchain. So in 2018 we did, I did a presentation for the original blockchain tech cap in Fiji funded by the US Embassy and USAID. More on the telco side of things, right? But then somehow I always think about just spatial stuff. So I kept on reading about it and there's some sort of like disruptive relationship that we can use blockchain and just spatial tools together. So if you do a bit of reading about proof of location in blockchain I just want to bring it down. So on the blockchain ecosystem you have some protocols like form, helium, platinum, xyl for mapping and proof of location for smart contracts. At the moment I'm currently working on getting my certification on to be a blockchain developer by January. So these are the kind of stuff that I would be, that I'm more like moving towards of my career with first 4G and just vessel stuff. So like if you're interested about that we can talk about it later but this is how I see the technology moving. So like with just spatial and first 4G and also with the blockchain technology. With the TLTs there are other stuff like Hashgraph and all those other things. But for the moment this is where I see the technology moving. So if anyone is interested in that we can talk about it later. So 2019. 2018 I was supposed to be in Melbourne but somehow my visa got a week later so I didn't have the chance to go. So finally I'm here and we are also a part of the project that I've been doing working on is like I'm more like I didn't fork it. I'm more like I just work on top of Ubuntu with another version of Ubuntu and created a distribution for Pacific Islands. And I also put all the just spatial stuff in it with quantum GIS and all this. So like you can if you're interested in that you can find the distribution online. You can download it, test it out. It's quite cool. It's very light. And yeah. All the features and stuff. So there's like more like this. The latest development I've done as far as just spatial tools is concerned with first 4G and also very, very like proactive in pushing for work with blockchain as well. So what do we see beyond 2019? As explained earlier on we moved in a direction that we wanted to have an established more like a chapter for OSG for Pacific Islands. But since we don't have the main power to sustain that and I've seen it because like it started lacking towards like last year and this year. We have some people in the community that are here now and we have a city that very, very instrumental in sorry, what you and where we see 2020 and beyond. So we made a bit for first 4G to be hosted in Suva Fiji in 2020. And we're hoping to see you all there. Some of the local organizing committee, the coaches is Vasity and Jonah. And Nick Rawlings unit from USB, Iron Minute, Elizabeth is in it, Dan, Julie, Joeri, Namaia and Celestia. So we would like to invite you all if you have want to see the Fiji and the Pacific Islands please come over to the Suva for first 4G 2020. Thank you. Are there any questions for Ebon? Kiora Edwin, thank you so much for the wonderful and very inspiring presentation. I'm David from another island in the Philippines on the other side. I would just want to ask you about what do you think are in your career which is very colorful, very I see how you try to navigate mess realities. What do you think are the common issues that you faced in making OSU OpenSuite Lab grow in the Pacific? If you can name at least the common issues that you had to face each time you were trying to push for the proliferation of our OSU and etc. I think resistance to change in the Pacific is quite common especially like if you were taught in a certain platform and also like another aspect of that like we were discussing last night as well we're great and yesterday more like I said like our fellow countrymen don't trust us kind of like that and like they'll if you walk into a room with if you are white guy and I'm me they're more likely to take to listen to you so like and also like some people they don't want to share data I mean like we like to share solutions but then some people are quite monkeying with the data they like ownership of their own data so like this is why part of the reason why we promote first for G and OpenData because like we want to see this happen in the Pacific as well so yeah resistance to change is quite common in the Pacific. Thanks. The Pacific Islands are generally caring and cheering communities and there are a number of organizations and aid agencies that help collate and collect data and information for the Pacific. There are these are held by custodians such as government departments and other organizations and there can be a reluctance to share that information. What do you think needs to be how can assistance be provided and what are your thoughts on the data sharing and more towards open source and maybe what this community how this community can help. Like as far as this community is concerned I think that has been the breakthrough that we have in the Pacific especially with people like the way I see it it's going to be like a bottoms up approach whereby you you have a success story from especially with the crossroads people that really do the work like the technicians like the my experience with my experience since 90s up to the 20s 20,000 as well up up to now as well. If I want to share data if I go to the top guy I have resistance so what I do is like we build this community and technical people share with themselves so even though like even though like this is protocol you're not supposed to share that data but they like somehow my I still working for the Tonga Power Board at the time somehow I got to work together with a guy from Tonga Water Board and we shared the data so we overlaid our data and then we showed them so like oh where did you get that from no I got the data from Tonga Water Board did you have a problem no but they saw the solution they also like this is how it works so like for my for my for my experience and what I say we keep the community vibrant and we work from a bottoms up approach and have success stories and then we have success stories people on top will find your proof.
for open source software for geospatial data separate from our spatial data. So the GIS. So at this time, and this was this is quite have a community of people to support you. And with open source and forceful G. So you can just young brother of Oceania chapter in the Pacific Pacific. Thanks. The Pacific Islands are held by custodians such as government departments