Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies Meets at the
GICON Conference in Vienna
Vienna, Austria, 10-14 July 2006
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Members of the JB-GIS at the University of Vienna:
President Alexandros Maratos, IHB, Prof. Bengt Rystedt,
ICA, Peter Jolly, IMTA, Prof. John Trinder, ISPRS,
President Milan Konecny, ICA, President Holger Magel, FIG
(Chair of the JB-GIS), Prof. Gerhard Beutler, IAG, President Ian Dowman, ISPRS and Prof.
Orhan Altan, ISPRS. |
The Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies has its annual
meeting in Vienna 11 July 2006. The meeting was held at the University of
Vienna in conjunction to the GICON conference. GICON is a conference that
included the Central European Cartographic Conference (54. Deutscher
Kartographentag), ISPRS Technical Commission II Symposium and the 12th
International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling. As ISPRS and ICA were
major organisers of GICON it offered a good platform also for the Joint
Board meeting.
The Joint Board meeting was attended by Presidents of the International
Association of Geodesy (IAG), the International Cartographic Association
(ICA), the International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
(ISPRS), the International Hydrographic Bureau (IHB) and FIG. From other
members of the Joint Board International Map Trade Association (IMTA) was
represented while the International Steering Committee for Global Mapping
(ISCGM) could not attend this time. The meeting was chaired by Prof. Holger Magel, FIG President who is currently the chair of the JB-GIS.
The discussions at the Steering Committee focussed on how to intensify
the co-operation between the members of the JB-GIS and the policies in
broadening the membership base. Interim reports of the two ad hoc committees
were discussed. Especially the work programme of the ad hoc committee on
capacity building in Africa was further developed. This included a strategy
in finding new partners to help with this crucial issue for all African
countries. The Chair of this ad hoc committee is Prof. Ian Dowman
from ISPRS and the FIG representative is Vice President Stig Enemark.
The second ad hoc committee was established in Cairo in 2005 to evaluate
the risk and disaster management activities of the members of the JB-GIS.
Prof. Bengt Rystedt from ICA, who is chairing this group presented
the first draft of the report at the meeting. The draft will now be
distributed to the committee members including Prof. Theo Kötter
representing FIG in this group.
Other issues at the meeting included reports and news from the member
organisations and discussions on further joint activities and events. The
next meeting of the JB-GIS will be held in conjunction to the ICA Congress
in Moscow in August 2007.
The meeting was hosted by Prof. Wolfgang Kainz from the Department
of Geography and Regional Research Cartography and GIS.
The GICON conference was attended by about 350 participants from 35
countries. At the opening ceremony the keynote address was given by
Prof. emeritus Joel L. Morrison, Ohio State University under the
title "Whither Where" about the role of cartography and cartographers
in the changing society. Among greetings were the welcome address of Mr. Gert Steinkellner, President of the Austrian Society for Surveying and
Geoinformation one of the co-hosts of the conference. More about the
conference at www.gicon2006.at.
FIG was represented at the Joint Board meeting by President Magel and the
FIG Director. The Director combined the visit to meetings with the Austrian
member association in Vienna discussing the future activities of FIG with
President Steinkellner and Gerhard Muggenhuber, Chair of Commission
3. He was also happy to visit Bratislava where he met with Prof. Alojz
Kopacik discussing the future work plan of Commission 6. He also had a
meeting with Mr. Vladimir Stromcek, President of the Chamber of
Surveyors and Cartographers and Mr. Jan Hardos, Representative of KGK
in FIG. KGK is the second member association of FIG from Slovak Republic
celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year.
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