Geospatial Business Ecosystem in Tanzania (GESEC)

Geospatial business ecosystem in Tanzania (GESEC) is a project consortium of University of Turku (UTU) and three Finnish geospatial companies: Arbonaut Oy, Dimenteq O and Vionice Oy and their business and academic partners in Tanzania. The project is implemented through a time period of 2 years together by the UTU Departments of Geography and Geology and Future Technology, in close team work with GESEC companies and Tanzanian academic, business, NGO and government partners.

UTU research team is proactively stimulating the emerging geospatial business ecosystem in Tanzania through action research. Firstly, we will study how the Finnish hi-tech companies can successfully find business opportunities for their geospatial technologies from the new emerging markets of developing countries and how local actors could best benefit from these technologies. Secondly, we are studying how various stakeholders use and apply digital geospatial solutions to make location-based decisions. Our attention is focused on how digital geospatial techniques combined with participation of the key stakeholders changes the ways their knowledge is established, shared and contributing in the decision-making situations and what benefits participants feel they obtain from using these solutions.

Our research will provide scientific evidences of knowledge creation processes and ecosystems required to contextualize innovation development to radically different socio-economic context. Our research will also provide scientific and practical knowledge on how hi-tech location-based software solutions can be applied and further developed in the context and for the needs of the customers and beneficiaries in Tanzania. Our research is well in synergy with ongoing Finnish development cooperation in Tanzania and there are expected immediate and longer term development impacts ranging from economic to social, environmental and cultural impacts.