Graduates and employees of the Institute for Geoinformatics have founded during the past years over and over again successfully enterprises whose commercial model is based on research results and research projects from their scientific work at ifgi. In the following some of these enterprises are briefly introduced:
con terra GmbH con terra's core competence comprises the whole spectrum of methods and tools used in the manufacturing of IT solutions in the field of geodata processing. This includes all the semantic, structural, and pragmatic aspects of collecting, managing, analysing and displaying spatial data, as well as training and consultancy activities in the field of geoinformation systems. The enterprise was founded in 1994 by Dr. Albert Remke who is still connected to the Institute as an assistant professor Open Source Initiative 52°North
Homepage:
http://www.conterra.de/
52° North The open source software initiative 52°North is an international network of partners from research, industry and public administration. Its mission is to foster the development of new concepts and technologies in Geoinformatics through a common innovation process. Partners participate in so called R&D communities, focusing on common themes, such as Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) or web-based Geoprocessing, for example. 52° North was founded in 2004 by the Institute for Geoinformatics of the University of Muenste r (ifgi) and its spin-off company con terra GmbH (Muenster) as an informal initiative for free and open source geospatial software. The basic idea was to enhance the already existing cooperation and to gain further partners from research and industry by developing an appropriate business model and organizational model. The core element of this model was to publish results from the collaborative software development process under an open source license.
The 52°North partners have a long and outstanding record in the Geo-IT domain. They are actively contributing to the development of international standards, e.g. at W3C, ISO, OGC or INSPIRE.
Homepage:
http://52north.org/
proPlant proPlant was founded in 1996 as a result of a long-term cooperation between the agricultural commission of North-Rhine Westphalia and the University of Münster. One of its co-founders was Prof. Dr. Ulrich Streit , also founder and first director of the Institute for Geoinformatics. proPlant designs and develops innovative software solutions that are tailored to practical field conditions and requirements. Its main product, "proPlant", is a standard in crop consulting and professional arable farming.
Homepage:
http://www.proplant.de
melezo melezo was founded in 2010 by Markus Buzeck and Oliver Paczkowski. Both graduated in Geoinformatics and dispose of several years experience in the development and administration of digital information systems. With the software solution "iDisplays", melezo offers a centrally administered, context based information system for distributed wide screens about which well-chosen information should be made directly and specific publicly visible.
Homepage:
http://www.melezo.de
Millennia
Millenia GmbH was specialized in developing applications in geospatial services for mobile devices and e-commerce. It was founded by Dr. Yaser Bishr in the year 2000 when he worked as an assistant professor at the Institute for Geoinformatics. After developing first solutions for location bases services, Millennia and its assets where merged with Image Matters LLC in 2001.
