Digital maps
University of Alabama at Birmingham Associate Professor Akhlaque Haque, Ph.D., is in Bangladesh on a mission to create that nation's first comprehensive digital maps, starting in the capital city of Dhaka. Haque, a Bangladeshi, says that currently, there are no digital maps of the city available to the public.
Haque and a team of graduate students at BRAC University in Dhaka, a city of about 11 million, are traveling through the city's streets carrying hand-held GPS units capturing data on the location of roads, police stations, hospitals, government buildings, etc. They will download the location data into computers using Geographic Information Technology (GIS) in order to create the digital maps.
Why this project is important:
1) Haque will be able to determine alternative routes in and out of the city. This will be especially important for police, rescue workers and aid workers.
2) There is a need to develop a generation of GIS professionals in Bangladesh. Currently, there are few trained GIS professionals in the country.
You can learn more about Dr. Haque's work and about GIS at www.uab.edu/bangladesh
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