CCOP Geoinformation Sharing Infrastructure for East and Southeast Asia (GSi) Project Kick-Off Meeting

The Kick-off Meeting of the Japanese-funded CCOP Geoinformation Sharing Infrastructure for East and Southeast Asia (GSi) Project was held on 1-2 September 2015 at Holiday Inn Hotel Silom, Bangkok, Thailand.  Twenty-three (23) participants from the member countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) including the staff of the CCOP Technical Secretariat (CCOP TS) attended the meeting.

Dr Adichat Surinkum, Director of the CCOP Technical Secretariat welcomed all the participants to the meeting and gave the opening address.  Dr Shinji Takarada of the Geological Survey of Japan (GSJ), AIST introduced the GSi Project to all the participants.  Dr Joel Bandibas of GSJ, AIST gave an overview of the GSi system being developed for the Project.

All the CCOP member countries present gave a report on their country’s current status of Spatial Data Information System, extent of Geographic Information System usage, availability of sharable data and availability of national data policy.
Hands-on training on the usage of the GSi System with real data was conducted by Dr Bandibas on the second day of the meeting.
Discussion on the scope of the project, roles and responsibilities, workplan and data policy was made.  The following are the next steps to be made until September 2016.

• Submit a tentative data upload plan for 5 years (by CCOP Annual Session in Nov. 2015)
• Start data upload and try to make an own portal site
• System development and improvement (requests from National and Data Coordinators)
• Provide user manual for National and Data Coordinators
• Make a mailing-list service and wiki site for discussion among participants (knowledge database)

Agreed minutes of the meeting has been circulated to all the Member Countries Permanent Representatives.