The Stuttgart Active Alumni Group (SAAG) is an Alumni Association of the graduates of the Faculty of Geoinformatics, Mathematics and Computer Science of the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences (SUAS), Germany. The alumni are spread over the world and work in areas ranging from academics to car navigation systems, besides a plethora of areas which have a geospatial to military strategizing, besides a plethora of areas which have a geospatial component to it.
The idea for SAAG originated in November 2007 at Stuttgart after a week of deliberations amongst the alumni and the faculty, represented by alumni coordinator Dr.-Ing. Franz-Josef Behr. The SAAG decided to launch its own series of workshops, as a beginning to its activites. These are aimed at bringing an international flavour to the SUAS’ already widely acclaimed courses and research. The internationalization process has an added importance now because countries like India are top economic partners of Germany, and Germany looks at partnering countries as powerhouses of intellect and ideas.
The SUAS and SAAG work in tandem to catalyze and energize collaborations/cooperation in research projects with partners across the world. It is assumed that these joint ventures would be beneficial to both partners and would lead to generation of better knowledge on geospatial problems and offer better solutions that will have an impact on the socio-economic space of the countries involved.
The workshop in 2008 on WebGIS and Ecoinformatics Oct 28—30, 2008 at IIITMK, Trivandrum, India was a first outcome of the SAAG’s initiative in “Excellence Exchange”.
The SUAS—SAAG aim to take technology and facilities to where a need exists and also aim to upgrade standards to international levels, especially through interventions in less priveleged colleges and other educational institutions in the world.
In this endeavour of the Stuttgart Active Alumni Group (SAAG), it is hoped that the geospatial fraternity contributes with ideas, programmes and projects.
SAAG contacts:
- Prof. Dr. A.P.Pradeepkumar, University of Kerala, Trivandrum, Kerala, India, geo_pradeep@yahoo.com
- Prof. Dr. Franz-Josef Behr, course director, Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences, Stutgart, Germany, franz-josef.behr@hft-stuttgart.de
- Prof. Dr. Dietrich Schröder, former course director, Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences, Stutgart, Germany,