My Community, Our Earth

We are pleased to announce a new initiative building upon our current work and partnership with NASA, USAID, ESRI, the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD, which hosts SERVIR-Africa) and other public/private partners and focusing attention local capacity to use geography and geographic technologies for biodiversity initiatives in Africa. A MyCOE / SERVIR Biodiversity Youth Cadre will be formed from participants in eligible countries (see below), competitively selected for their long-term potential to contribute to the region’s biodiversity issues. They will be paired with local / in-country mentors as well as provided with mentoring from the MyCOE partnership broadly. Both students and their faculty advisors or other mentors will receive stipends to conduct projects of 6 months duration and receive support to attend a capacity building and GIS workshop at the RCMRD in Nairobi, Kenya on November 2-6, 2009.

Applications will be given priority that are received from: Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Applications will also be considered that are received from these other eligible countries: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ghana, Guinea, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. U.S.-based students and scholars may be eligible to particiapte in other ways.

Students Interested in the Youth Cadre: How to participate
Eligible youth applicants will be local to the countries in which they work and will be enrolled or completing studies at a university or similar educational institution (either undergraduate or graduate level). Participants will be selected on the basis of existing capacity and long-term future potential. Interested students should send an email to Dr. Patricia Solís, AAG (psolis@aag.org) with “MyCOE / SERVIR Biodiversity in Africa Fellow Application” in the subject line to ensure that the message is delivered properly. All submissions will be acknowledged with an email receipt within 3 business days.

Submissions to participate as a student Fellow should include:

A letter of interest indicating long term career plans

Please include your full legal name
Please indicate the name of the institution where you are currently enrolled
Please state your major program of study (e.g. geography, biology, etc.)
Please be sure to include full contact information, including your nationality and the City and Country of your residence

A Curriculum Vitae (CV)
OPTIONAL: If students already have a particular biodiversity-related project in mind, a brief description of the proposed activities in no more than 2 pages. If you already have a mentor or advisor you are working with, please also provide the CV of your advisor. Please note that students will be selected to work on projects that are defined by the program coordinator, but it may be possible to orient activities toward the individual research interests of the student. All selected projects will meet the following criteria:

Use geographic technologies such as GIS and GPS
Incorporate activities that respond to local threats to biodiversity
Address local areas with biological significance
Have a committed mentor to participate in capacity building activities
Have a duration of 3 to 6 months of research activity

(Note: For examples of previous biodiversity projects supported by MyCOE in Central America, 2008, please see the summaries posted here)

Eligibility: Upper level undergraduate students, graduate students, or post doctoral students (within 6 years of receiving the PhD), and who are citizens or residents of the above named countries and are currently enrolled in a university or academic institution in any field may apply to be MyCOE / SERVIR Fellows. (To apply as a mentor, please see section, below).

Criteria: The overriding criteria that will be used in evaluating applications is the potential of each applicant's contribution to long-term biodiversity research using geographic technologies and the level of match to the projects that will be conducted. An independent screening committee comprised of experts in biodiversity, GIS, and the African region will evaluate applications.

Potential Collaboration with US Participants. Teams may be potentially complimented by a student from a US university selected competitively to match with the skills, experience, interest, and direction of the project.

Benefits. Fellow participants will receive the following:

a monthly research stipend (from 3 to 6 months, depending upon the project).
travel (airfare, hotel, and accommodations) to attend a one-week long workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, tentatively mid-October 2009.
designated and supported mentors (generally their own thesis or dissertation supervisor).
geospatial data resources if needed (likely in synergy with State Department initiative).
travel support to attend the cadre capacity building at an event to be held in Nairobi.

Condition of Accepting an Award: Those selected to participate must agree in writing, among other details, to comply with program guidelines, to engage in the program’s learning activities, and contribute to the elaboration of the assigned project as a condition of their acceptance. Each fellow participant will be expected to:

perform research work with their assigned team (and mentor) on identified tasks related to a biodiversity project that utilizes geographic technologies.
participate in the week-long cadre capacity building event in Nairobi, Kenya
use cyberinfrastructure of AAG-MyCOE and NASA-SERVIR that facilitate research, learning, and collaboration over distances with Africa colleagues and US team members, if assigned.
engage in structured peer-to-peer communications with other members of the MyCOE / SERVIR cadre.
submit an individual research report at the project end.
respond to requests for information from the program administrators, including but not limited to program evaluations.

Local Organizations Serving as Youth Hosts (Mentor Applications)
Local or regional organizations may propose a project in response to the criteria below and work in conjunction with an assigned student. Proposed activities must:

Use geographic technologies such as GIS and GPS
Incorporate activities that respond to local threats to biodiversity
Address local areas with biological significance

Persons interested in serving as local mentors should send an email to Dr. Patricia Solis, AAG (psolis@aag.org) with the following items, with priority attention given to submissions received by June 26, 2009. (Please indicate MyCOE / SERVIR Mentor in the subject line to ensure that the message is delivered properly. All inquiries will be acknowledged with an email receipt within 3 business days.)

A letter of interest describing the organization and the nature of the proposed biodiversity-related project. Particularly identifying the sets of activities the student would conduct; in no more than 3 pages.
A Curriculum Vitae of the person who will serve as mentor to the student – please include full name, title, institutional affiliation, nationality, country of residence, and contact information

If local organizations would like to sponsor a particular student, please also provide a letter of interest written by the student and their CV and full contact information. We are sorry that we cannot review proposals to support more than one student per project without prior express written approval, and only in exceptional cases.

About MyCOE:
The partnership My Community Our Earth Partnership (MyCOE) was established in 2001 in the runup for the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. The main program objectives are to involve youth in sustainable development projects in their own communities, provide capacity building in the use of geographic tools and technologies, and disseminate the results of the program globally in order to highlight the contributions of geography toward sustainable development. The Association of American Geographers (AAG) serves as MyCOE secretariat. This program is made possible by a grant from NASA to AAG, as well as other MyCOE partner contributions. Description of other MyCOE partners and regional programs can be found online at the MyCOE website.

For more information on the AAG's activities in Africa, please click here.

About SERVIR:
The SERVIR initiative integrates satellite observations, ground-based data and forecast models to monitor and forecast environmental changes and to improve response to natural disasters. SERVIR enables scientists, educators, project managers and policy implementers to better respond to a range of issues including disaster management, agricultural development, biodiversity conservation and climate change. Endorsed by governments of Central America and Africa and principally supported by NASA and the US Agency of International Development (USAID), a strong emphasis is placed on partnerships to fortify the availability of searchable and viewable earth observations, measurements, animations, and analysis. A SERVIR coordination office and rapid prototyping facility is located at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Regional SERVIR nodes are located at the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC) in Panama and the Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) based in Kenya.