If we can’t go to them, then they’ll just have to come to us. This was our solution to best use the time that I have left before I head back to Canada in mid-December. I was supposed to be a visiting researcher to UCBC in Beni, but instead we brought Congolese visiting researchers to Uganda! Last week two of our colleagues Othy and Archip came and joined the international staff in Kampala for two weeks of GIS training. Both are alumni of UCBC; Othy is a professor with a degree in Computer Engineering and Archip is a researcher at the Integrated Research Institute (IRI) with a degree in Communications. It has been such a blessing to have them here! They are a piece of Beni and have an incredible joy, energy, and hope for Congo that is contagious!
Every day the work has been intense because we have been making up for lost time. The first three days were a review of OpenStreetMap, OSMAnd, JOSM Editor, Garmin Devices, ODK Collect, QGIS, and how to build custom surveys. Next we jumped into training on how to fly the quadrocopter drone that the IRI purchased to use for developing maps from aerial photography. We taught ourselves how to manually fly the copter but also to automate take off and landing and set a preprogrammed path for it to follow. We are now in week two and are diving more into QGIS to continue developing the base map, and working together to develop the UCBC, IRI, and BeniAtlas websites. There is great and exciting work happening here and I feel privileged to be a part of it! I am sad that I don’t get to be there to see these projects through, but am looking forward to keeping in touch and working with the team remotely. These two weeks of training have been a great conclusion to my time here.
Training
Calibrating the drone
Curious spectators
Trouble-shooting
Life Section 