June 6 – July 6, 2007 -- GeoConnections is pleased to announce a new funding opportunity.  The program is now soliciting letters of intent for projects that will ultimately account for, build, and draw upon distributed sources of location-based or “geospatial” information over the Internet. Projects will address specific issues within one or more of four priority areas: public health, public safety and security, environment and sustainable development, and matters of importance to Aboriginal people. Projects should assess and make use of the policies, standards, technologies, services, and data sets that comprise the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI), and they should facilitate information sharing in support of decision making.  Furthermore, projects funded through this Announcement of Opportunity (AO) will build capacity within user groups, and also promote, expand, and increase the use of the CGDI.

 Proposals will be accepted from government departments or agencies (local, provincial/territorial, or federal), Crown corporations, academic institutions, private-sector organizations, non-government organizations, and Aboriginal communities and organizations.

 Under this AO, the largest ever offered by GeoConnections, proponents may apply for support in the following areas: strategic planning, capacity building, user needs assessments, thematic data, data standards, regional atlases, and geospatial decision support systems. GeoConnections may support initiatives that consist of related projects in more than one of these areas. Multi-year funding is available.

 For more information on this funding opportunity, please see the full AO for  2007 Announcement of Opportunity for CGDI User Communities .