TAC was established in 1993 with financial help of USAID and technical assistance of USEPA. Two primary goals of TAC were defined. These are the arrangement of training courses for state employees working within the structure of the Ministry of Environment of SR and development of GIS based applications related to information resources management in the field of environmental protection and urban planing.

1993

SEA is established as nonprofit governmental organization.

Financial help of USAID: US$ 92,000

Technical assistance of USEPA: USEPA acted as financial manager and counselor during initial stages of GIS implementation at TAC. USEPA recommended initial hardware and software solutions as follows:server - DataGeneral Model AV530, Dual Processor Motorola 2 x 33 MHz, RAM 32 MB, HDD 1 GB, 8 mm Streamer, GIS  ArcInfo v.6 - 1st. license, GIS ArcView v.1 - 1st. license, Utilities, six PCs - processor 486SX 50 MHz, RAM 16 MB, HDD 200 MB, 17' Color Monitor, OS Windows 3.1, PCTCP LAN in TAC, 1 x digitizer Summagraphics Microgrid III, 1 x laser printer.

1995

Financial help of EU: PHARE Project TAC EU/95/ISS/33: ECU 100,000

Main goal of PHARE Project was technical promotion of educational process in TAC with emphasis on GIS implementation.
Two extra PCs were supplied and original six PCs were upgraded as follows - processor Pentium 75 MHz, RAM 32 MB, HDD 1.6 GB, OS Windows NT 3.51, PC ArcInfo, eXceed - unix emulation software in order to run unix ArcInfo on PC. Existing 1st license of unix ArcInfo was upgraded to 3pack and ArcInfo training course was organized. In addition, overhead projector, LCD panel, table and wall screen were supplied.

SEA financed following items: purchase of SUN SparcStation 20 and Sparc Storage Array with 12 GB of disk storage capacity, establishment of Local Area Network in SEA building and connection to Internet . SEA established its own internet node.

1996

USAID financed purchase of Plotter Novajet III.
SEA was asked by the Ministry of Environment of SR to propose and implement the Slovak Environmental Wide Area Network (SEN). SEA financed purchase of Digitizer Calcomp Drawing Board size A1.

1997

Server Data General was upgraded to SUN Ultra 1 with following specification: SPARC Processor 167 Mhz, RAM 128 MB, HDD 2 GB internal, 9 GB external.Two GPS receivers TOPCON Turbo G1 were supplied.
SEA initiated the implementation of SEN.
Following equipment was arranged by SEA: plotter Novajet IV, one GPS receiver TOPCON Turbo G1 and WinFrame server v.1.7 with purpose to distribute any windows based application within SEN.

1998

12 GB of disk space was added to Sparc Storage Array.
SUN SparcStation 20 was upgraded to SUN Ultra 10s.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) finances development study " Regional Environmental Management Plan (REMP) for Hron River Basin" in SR. JICA also provides technical assistance to GIS department consisting of 12 GB of  disk space added to Sparc Storage Array, Contex scanner size A0 and Oracle sever with 7 licenses. For more information on REMP click here.

1999

SEA wants to continue implementing SEN and other projects related to INFORMATION RESOURCES MANAGEMENT in the field of environmental protection and urban planning.

Training courses at TAC are organized mainly for employees of SEA at the present. There is no intention, however, to exclude other state employees working within the structure of the Ministry of Environment of SR. Courses are organized as often as needed ranging from basic ones for beginning PC users to specialized ones dedicated to GIS ArcInfo and ArcView. Department of Environmental Education organizes basic courses whereas specialized ones are provided by experts working at GIS Division and Division of Computer Networks. Following list of possible training courses illustrates the range of ongoing educational activities at TAC:

PC basics
Advanced PC user
Windows 95
Windows 95 system administration
Network services: e-mail, ftp, list servers, www, etc.
Windows NT network administration
Text editors: MSWord, Amipro
Table editors: Excel, FoxPro
GIS: ArcInfo, ArcView
Database application software

For current timetable and further information contact Mrs. Rusnakova.

Development of applications is carried out mainly by experts working at GIS and Remote Sensing Divisions. Applications are related to various domestic and international projects. They are developed in colaboration with universities, research institutes and other partner organizations depending on defined project goals. For more information on projects click here.