AMIOUN ON-LINE GIS SERVICES: SUCCESS ACHIEVED THROUGH PARTNERSHIP Oussama C. Jadayel1, Nada Khorchid2, Fares Nassif3 and Rita Ibrahim4 ABSTRACT The importance of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technologies cannot be over- emphasized in modern-day, post-war Lebanon. However, implementation of these novel and very powerful tools within the country civil service has been rather slow. As a result, the Lebanese public sector has not been able to harness this technology and reap its benefits. The reasons behind this set-back have been many and diversified. To begin with, initial investments in GI-systems are relatively high. There is also the pre-requisite of adequately trained and skilled staff who must be conversant with such systems. These hurdles have been very frustrating to systems suppliers, developers, and academics who collectively are highly skilled and keen to see such novel applications penetrate the market. Engineering departments have been particularly affected since this has prevented them from advancing their GIS teaching or research programs and directing their graduates to the local job markets. To break the dead-lock, a unique model has been pioneered by three partners: University of Balamand Engineering Faculty, ArabiaGIS and Amioun Municipality. The latter two represent the private industrial and public sectors respectively. The three parties joined forces in order to put in place a fully functional web-based system offering electronic local authority services to the public. These services ranged from tax payments to tourist information to property and business advertising to utility networks as well as many more. In realizing the pilot system, each party has contributed its know-how, its contacts and its full potential. Consequently, each has achieved its institutional objective: Amioun has become more efficient in its government, ArabiaGIS has achieved an integrated system which it can advertise, and Balamand University has trained its students on a real project and given them added value for their education. KEYWORDS GIS, Partnership, Local Authorities, Student Training, Lebanon, On-Line 1-INTRODUCTION The Lebanese public sector has been very appreciative of the potentials of geographical information systems and has been monitoring their developments with extreme interest. Several ministries and public service companies have found in them the long awaited tools 1 Associate Professor, Director GIS Center, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Balamand, P.O.Box: 100, Tripoli, Lebanon. Email: [email protected] 2 ArabiaGISChief Operation Officer, Gefinor Bloc E, 1st Floor, P.O.Box: 13-5302, Beirut Lebanon. Email: [email protected] 3 President, Amioun Municipality,P.O.Box: 6, Amioun, Al-Koura, Lebanon. Email: [email protected] 4 GIS Center Supervisor, University of Balamand, P.o.Box: 100, Tripoli, Lebanon. Email: [email protected] 1 necessary to develop their services to more competitive levels. The Ministry of Environment for example has invested in a system which it uses to evaluate and assess the levels of environmental stress at various regions of the country according to some very specific set of indicators (ECOEDIT Liban, 2001). On the other hand, the Lebanese postal service, as well as a regional electricity board (Electricte de Zahle) have also pioneered the use of these systems as early as the mid-nineties (Nakad, 2000 and Kabbara, 2001). However, the penetration of these systems into other areas and levels of government, especially the local authorities, has been very slow. The major reasons behind this set back are really economic in nature. The relatively high initial investment in software, hardware and data needed for development, as well as the need to recruit or train staff capable to operate, manage and maintain such highly sophisticated systems have been really prohibitive to local authorities operating on very tight budgets. Lebanese universities on the other hand are keen to ensure that their graduates are trained to the highest of standards and are kept in direct contact with industrial and governmental sectors in order to enhance their professional profiles and improve their employability. This has so far proved difficult without a unifying and cost effective activity or project. The object of this paper is to report the results of a successful partnership whereby the academic, the public and the private sectors joined forces, perhaps for the first time, to realize a novel pilot project with very minimal monetary resource. The synergy achieved by their union exceeded by far the sum total of their individual contributions and allowed each to better achieve its institutional mission. 2-THE CONSORTIUM In this section, the consortium made up from the University of Balamand Engineering Faculty, Amioun Municipality as well as ArabiaGIS will be presented. The special elements of each partner, which enabled the realization of the final project objectives, will also be highlighted. 2.1 The University of Balamand and its GIS Center The University of Balamand is a non-profit institution for higher education, established in 1988 on the historical Balamand hill at seventy five kilometers to the north of the Lebanese capital Beirut. Over the years, the University has grown to incorporate a total of nine faculties including Arts and Social Sciences, Engineering, Sciences, Health Sciences, Medicine, Medical Specialties, Business and Management, Theology, and Fine Arts (Acdemie Libanaise des Baux Arts:ALBA). The University has chosen for itself a mission which reflects Lebanese national priorities: In addition to promoting excellence in teaching and research, it seeks to instill cross-cultural dialogue, build student capacities to meet national aspirations, as well as protect the Lebanese environment and sustain its resources. To fulfill its objectives, Balamand has developed a number of protocols with establishments from both the governmental and non-governmental sectors and instigated a number of programs, both curricular and extra- curricular, through which it can engage its faculty, staff and students in active interaction with its community. One such program is a community service based activity, Service Experience: Education through Doing-SEED (SEED Web-Site, 2000), in which students can use their skills, gain professional experience and get academic credit for work they do for developing their government, local authority or non-governmental organization. 2 The Geographical Information Systems Center (GISC) at the University of Balamand Engineering Faculty was established in 1999 as a facility intended to advance knowledge in modern-day geographical technologies. From the start, the activities of the center quickly attracted the attention of the University community as well as that of the external local agencies, particularly the local authorities around the University who collectively saw the potentials of GIS in improving the quality of life on the local and the national levels. Consequently, on the one hand the center was approached by community partners eager to develop and implement such technologies, and on the other, many students who were keen to develop skills in this modern field. The result was a very rapid growth of the GIS culture at Balamand thus rendering the Center a hub for excellence not only in the north but also in the country as a whole. Such a standing was achieved through a stringent strategy in which a well defined hierarchy was coupled with a dedicated human element and sophisticated equipment to realize a clear mission: “Developing GIS knowledge inline with national requirements”. As such, students were voluntarily brought in to man the Center and to work with faculty members and technical supervisors on real practical projects. Those students fed into the Center through the many University schemes which enabled them to do so. Many of them were to work for their graduation projects while others were community service students who were supposed to work on community partner projects or graduates who wanted to further their qualifications through the continuing education program, etc. The Center is now a forum in which students of different backgrounds and experiences interact and exchange ideas and know-how. It is now the norm where experienced students train the less experienced and work together towards a common goal: computerizing maps of places where they grew up and live. Figure 1. Students at the Balamand GIS Center 2.2 ArabiaGIS ArabiaGIS is a company owned and managed by Khatib & Alami Consolidated Engineering Company (K&ACEC) and Automation & Computer Technologies (ACT) for the purpose of e-mapping commerce. It aims at commercializing the Geographic Information System by providing a wide range of products and services for Consumers, Businesses, Professionals, and Intellectuals. The company offers a unique combination with extensive expertise and professionalism in GIS Enterprise Solutions, Turn Key Solutions, Consulting Services, Hosting Infrastructures, and Spatially Enabled Electronic Mapping/Commerce Solutions. 3 ArabiaGIS is offering several online GIS services utilizing state-of-the-art technologies such as Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server, MS SQL 2000 Server, ESRI’s ArcIMS & ArcSDE with the ability to port solutions to any platform. All these services are provided via an ASP model with the Internet used as a delivery channel. ArabiaGIS has been in need of a real pilot project to demonstrate its