When I started off this internship, I had little practical experience of Open Source software. I had heard about it, and knew that it was an interesting, expanding field for a collective good, but hadn’t an opportunity to delve in deeper through my education career.

This internship has given me that opportunity and exposed me to a whole range of Open Source tools, especially those related to GIS. The programme was run so that touched on a variety of sections, explaining basic concepts and applying this information to practical projects. The sections could later be built on, beyond the internship. The training also included work from live projects running at Linfinti Consulting, which was a rewarding experience because it involved interaction with clients and handing over a product at the end of the day.

The days usually began with a session from Tim or Anne explaining what we would be covering that day. They explained all the necessary theory in a down-to-earth, and understandable way, ensuring that we understood. And after that we would get busy with our clicking, typing, learning and building. They would patiently assist us when we got stuck, and help us get to the root of the issue when there were bigger problems.

Tim and Anne were both excellent, knowledgable and practical teachers with tremendous enthusiasm for Open Source GIS, which has left me inspired.

Some of the new tools and concepts I was exposed to:

• Concepts of FOSS and the FOSS GIS stack
  
• Linux operating system – some bash, basic tools and software on Linux
• PostGIS – (first time I’ve used a geodatabase through open source and seen its practicality!)
  
• Qgis – user interface, new symbology and cartography, plugins (very useful!)
• Programming - coding in Python to create our own Qgis plugins, coding standards, SVN
• Open source community support – through IRC, mailing lists and forums
• GRASS - introduction to the interface and commands, and practical application in flood simulation
• Mapserver, Openlayers – exporting QGIS projects to mapfiles, editing symbology of the mapfiles, displaying through OpenLayers
  
• HTML, CSS, Javascript (JQuery) – linking these up, and building a webpage
• Joomla CMS

Tim also expained how all these sections were connected and added to one another, and we got to see this through our own practical work.

I really enjoyed and learnt a lot, and would like to thank Tim, Anne, Marcelle and Robert for the valuable time I spent here. It’s a sad goodbye to the team and office, but I am hoping that the new skills that I have learnt here will contribute positively to the future.

Looking foward to FOSS GIS growing in Africa! \o/

- sam