GEOSS and GEO under the spotlight

Listings of presented papers and wrap up summary will follow soon.
Download of the abstracts, papesr, ppts: www.gsdi.org

Informal talks of the UNGIWG Co-Chair, UNSDI Spanish and Hungarian NCO heads

More asap

UNGIWG Co-Chair Karl Steinecker at the GSDI-1o

Karl Steinecker addressed the UNSDI. Image: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2oo8
After the session, Heads of the Spanish and the Hungarian NCOs met with Karl Steinecker for a short talk.

GSDI-1o Opened.

Talking on GEOSS. Alessandro Annoni of DG JRC with Ivan DeLoatch and Doug Nebert of USGS FGDC. Image: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2oo8

UNGIWG and UNSDI an important actor in the institutionalisation of standards

Slide of OGC and ISO TC211 Outreach expert Henry Tom's presentation listing UNGIWG/UNSDI as important partner in widening the user coommunity using international standards. Image: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2oo8

Capacity building - space for GSDI-UNSDI cooperation?

University of West Indies Campus at St.Augustine, the venue of the GSDI-1o Conference. Image: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2oo8
On Sunday, in the Liasion Report provided by the HUNAGI member of the GSDI Board of Directors the recommendation of Prof Mike Gould was referred and seconded to use the opportunity of the meeting of UNGIWG Co-chair Karl Steinecker and the GSDI top officers to consider joint actions/cooperations in capacity building. If positively received this could lead to a new avenue towards the strengthen of the contribution to the implementation of GEO's 1o-year action plan.

The UN Goals for 2008

2008 Members’ Day at the UN
Saturday, April 5, 2008
"Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has set ambitious goals for the UN in 2008 to tackle some of the world’s most pressing issues, both new and old. This year brings two significant milestones for the UN: 2008 is the midway point for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the sixty year anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While the UN will use these milestones to direct much of its work, a range of ongoing issues have to be addressed. Discussion Topics :
The UN’s Goals for 2008
Climate Change
Human Rights
The Millennium Development Goals"
InfoSource: ATSherry, Santa Niguel, CA, USA

HUCO/HUNAGI contribution to the UNSDI Capacity Building Deliverable Proposal

The following thougths as HUCO contribution, seconded by Jelle U. Hielkema was confirmed to be integrated into the Version 6 of the Proposal Document on the UNSDI Capacity Building element by Steeve Ebener, project manager of eHealth at WHO, Geneva.
" Raising awareness of UNSDI with public servants, decision makers in order to enable better governance on local, regional and country level, providing synergy with e-government programmes and governmental actions towards sustainable development
(N.B. Reasoning: it is obvious, the capacity building has an aim to influence the way of thinking in the administrations too. "Think spatially" as the slogan of the GSDI Association says.)
...I would recommend to add also the NGOs as potential partner
(Reasoning: NGOs - interdisciplinary or discipline oriented - are flexible, neutral, and mostly voluntarily committed partners, playing facilitator role)"

UNSDI HUCO Statement for UNGIWG Sec

UNSDI-Hungarian Coordination Office (HUCO)

The HUCO was established as a virtual office in September 2006 by the common willingness of the participating major stakeholders as HUCO Steering Committee representing mainly governmental agencies, academia and NGOs interested in the provision and use of spatial data. HUCO-related operative tasks were assigned to the Secretary General of the Hungarian Association for Geo-information (HUNAGI). This spatial data interest community has legal entity, exists as independent National GI Association which was established in 1994. HUCO related activities are supervised and coordinated by the HUCO Steering Committee.
HUCO has direct links to the primary bodies responsible for the adoption and implementation of the EC-INSPIRE Directive (namely the Ministry of Environment and Water as well as the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development including FÖMI, the Institute of Geodesy, Cartography and Remote Sensing).
Via HUNAGI, HUCO is involved in the policy shaping and legislative preparation of the amendments generated by the EU directives having impacts on the laws on Surveying and mapping activities, Law on Environment and the Law on Information freedom.
Primary partners of HUCO are the institutions and organisations represented by members of the Steering Committee (www.unsdi.hu).
Main activities of the HUCO are presently:

•awareness raising on UNSDI developments in general, goals, objectives and benefits in domestic and international fora including GSDI, Digital Earth, GEO, CEO WGISS and IYPE;
• informing primary and potential national partners on UNGIWG-UNSDI activities and plans and encourage their involvements in UNSDI developments;
• national UNSDI policy development support;
• informing the global UNSDI community on relevant Hungarian developments through a newsblog and related e-Newsletter both in English language;
• acquisition of funding for UNGIWG’s UNSDI Deliverables developments;
• operation and maintenance of the national UNSDI portal (www.unsdi.hu) and an interactive newsblog devoted to two-way information dissemination related to SDI on local, national, regional and global level jointly with HUNAGI

2008 onward: http://hunagi56.blogspot.com

2006-2007: http://hunagi.blogspot.com .

•consultancy and advisory role to supporting national users to access and use of spatial data provided by the global UNSDI community;
• supporting national partners in disclosing spatial data for use by the global UNSDI community;
• coordination of technical issues such as the possible collaboration in technical development;
• coordination of capacity building activities, arranging Open Days and discussion fora with delegations from abroad

UNESCO's IYPE Global Launch Event with the Paris Declaration refers explicitly UNSDI

The final draft was presented this morning at the Opening day hosted by UNESCO HQ . All NCOs and the UNGIWG Secretariat in Geneva was informed this evening from a the Internet Cafe "Le Comptoir" in Paris.

The disseminated printed version of the document differs slightly as follows:
"b) Producing global, digital and publicly available information on System Earth such as "OneGeology" and "UN Spatial Data Infrastructure" (UNSDI) projects;"

CAVEA-LABSITA at La Sapienza University of Roma hosted EUROGI and eSDI-Net+ Meetings

Outside working on the renovation of the Piazza Borghese, inside working on the GI/SDI supported future. Images: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2008

Professor Mauro Salvemini of the CAVEA-LABSITA at the La Sapienza University of Roma hosted two important meetings related to the GI in Europe. First, the EUROGI Executive Committee Meeting was held on 1-2 February with rich content on policy issues and international affairs-related agenda items. HUNAGI contribution emphasizing also the UNSDI developments is available at www.fomi.hu/hunagi/pdf/2004/ExComHUNAGIv2pdf.pdf

On 4-5 February, the Workshop of the Word Package 2 of the European eContentplus project called eSDI-Net+ was hosted by CAVEA-LABSITA in the same room, where the late Economy Professor Amintore Fanfani (later Prime Minister of Italy six times) was working. This workshop was participated by the different Work Package leaders plus some invited experts from outside of the network.
HUNAGI members CORVINUS University (Prof. I. Tózsa) and the Ministry of Environment and Water/GRID (Mr. D.Mikus) submitted written contributions last week via HUNAGI to the WP2 leader Joao Geirinhas, Secretary General of EUROGI. The WG2 Workshop is devoted to develop methodology to define the selection criteria and evaluation procedures of best practice examples. The results of the workshop will be highlighted at the Consortium's eSDI-Net+ Meeting scheduled for early March hosted by EUROGI under the coordination of Mr. Joachim Rix of INI-Graphics of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. HUNAGI is consortium member but also its planned subcontractors including VÁTI and Bonaventura are ready to be involved.