2005 was a very exciting year for Cell-Life. One of the goals we targeted was to start working in the Open Source GIS sector and understanding better the role of open source GIS in giving communities access to relevant local information. In most of South Africa’s metropole’s ,high-end commercial GIS systems have been set up to support Urban Management. Therefore, for example, the decision makers know how good or bad the accessibility of hospitals is, but the same data is not easily accessible to the community for a number of reasons.

Thanks to Bas Vanmeulebroek we were able to get moving in this arena. Bas joint us from the Netherlands for one year as a research affiliate. He voluntarily spent all his time developing open source GIS prototype applications for us, which we are now testing and using as our first platform to establish the use of Open Source GIS. However, he did take some time to enjoy the beauty of South Africa's mountains. We look forward to keeping in touch and taking advantage of ICT to work together in the future virtually from our distance locations. Thanks for all your contributions!