The GVSIG Project, driven by the Generalitat Valenciana and the GVSIG Association, awarded as the best software project in Europe at the OSOR Awards

The GVSIG Project, a joint initiative of the Generalitat Valenciana and the GVSIG Association, has been honored with the first prize at the OSOR Awards. This award recognizes the exceptional achievements of the GVSIG project on an international level and reflects the ongoing commitment of the Generalitat Valenciana to innovation and collaboration.

The OSOR Awards were organized by the Observatory of Open Source Software (OSOR) of the European Commission on the occasion of its 15th anniversary, aiming to highlight the best projects driven by public administrations throughout Europe. In this context, GVSIG stood out among all nominations, becoming the winner of the awards, emphasizing its global impact and contribution to European technological development.

According to the award organizers, over a hundred nominations from 23 countries were received. After an initial phase, the jury selected the top six projects, where GVSIG competed alongside projects from Spain, Denmark, Italy, and France. During the event held yesterday in Brussels, the six projects had to defend their candidacy before the European Commission's jury. Finally, the winner was announced: the GVSIG project jointly presented by the Generalitat Valenciana and the GVSIG Association.

The GVSIG Project is a catalog of computer tools for geographic information management that, since its inception in 2004, has gained recognition for its versatility and usefulness in various sectors, from natural resource management to urban planning. The Generalitat Valenciana has played a fundamental role in both its initial promotion and continuous support for the project. The GVSIG Association, in turn, has played an essential role in promoting and disseminating this platform internationally, facilitating the generation and growth of a Valencian business sector specializing in geographic information technologies. An example of public-private collaboration that now receives recognition from Europe.

This prestigious award not only acknowledges the success of the GVSIG Project but also highlights the commitment of the Generalitat Valenciana and the GVSIG Association to promoting open and accessible technological solutions, fostering innovation and collaboration as drivers of development.

GVSIG addresses all needs related to geolocation and territory management. Its users in the Generalitat Valenciana are multiplying, and among various use cases are applications to help protect seagrass meadows, such as the well-known posidonia, by avoiding anchoring in protected areas, applications for managing the vineyard registry, and solutions to promote sustainable mobility through a route planner more versatile than Google Maps itself, or applications to analyze traffic accidents.

If its use is widespread in the Generalitat Valenciana, the same is true globally. Countless entities of all kinds use this Valencian technology. Several were mentioned in the presentation of the OSOR Awards. At the supranational level, entities like the United Nations have adopted it as a reference technology for prominent uses, such as enhancing the security of Blue Helmets' missions during their travels in the face of terrorist attacks. Nationally, it has been similarly adopted, with significant cases such as the Government of Uruguay, where GVSIG is the technological basis for all territorial information management and dissemination projects in the country, also serving to create a unique addressing system. In Uruguay, its adoption is so extensive that it is used in secondary education for learning subjects related to geography. Its use at the regional and local levels leads to examples such as the State of Tocantins in Brazil, where it has become the platform for geographic and statistical management, or the Government of Córdoba in Argentina, where it is used to analyze crime and public safety data. It is even more deeply entrenched in local administrations, with GVSIG being rapidly adopted by dozens of municipalities throughout Spain, including the recent additions of the municipalities of Alicante, Albacete, Cartagena, and Talavera de la Reina. In the Valencian Community alone, the number of municipalities trusting GVSIG is countless: Cullera, Onda, Picassent, L'Eliana, La Pobla de Vallbona, Nàquera, Alzira, Benicarló, and many other Valencian entities have also adopted GVSIG, such as the Provincial Fire Consortium of Valencia, where its use focuses on emergency management. Beyond the public administration, whose relationship with the territory is direct, GVSIG has also become part of the computer solutions used by companies working with geopositioned information, such as Repsol, which extensively uses GVSIG in its renewable energy division.

The award granted to the Generalitat Valenciana and the GVSIG Association adds to other accolades previously obtained from diverse entities such as Diario Expansión or NASA.

GVSIG is a reference in what is called Spatial Data Infrastructures, the implementation of platforms that allow public administrations to share their geographic information through standards.

The impact of the project has numerous ramifications; academically, GVSIG training is offered at universities worldwide, hundreds of scientific articles are published annually using GVSIG as a tool by researchers, and conferences and events showcasing various projects developed with GVSIG abound.

GVSIG, a project based on free knowledge, is an example of public-private collaboration that positions Valencia as one of the undisputed reference hubs in the field of geomatics, technology applied to the geographic dimension of information. The award obtained yesterday is recognition for the entire journey taken.

Recently, it has been nominated for the National Geographic Sciences Award, still pending resolution. Sources from the GVSIG Association have confirmed that this candidacy has received more than 150 letters of support from entities worldwide, from the Department of Transportation in Washington to the Ordnance Survey, the cartographic agency of the United Kingdom.