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Saturday, November 29, 2008

EUROGI EMM in Gothenburg focused on EU SDI-related projects





The Extended EUROGI Members' Meeting attracted participants from many European countries including a 3-member HUNAGI delegation from Hungary. also the industry was well represented by regional representatives of the leading global GI companies having anchor in Europe
Images: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2008

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Prof Chen Shupeng passed away

Father of the Chinese GI/RS passed away o 25th November 2008. The message was sent by Prof Wang Changlin, Secretary of the International Society of Digital Earth. For more details please visit http://hunagi56.blogspot.com. Condolences were sent both ISDE Secretariat and his beloved family on behalf of the Hungarian Geospatial Data Interest Community this morning.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Representative of UNOOSA/SPIDER met with UNSDI HUCO Stakeholder


Lóránt Czárán (r) of UN OOSA/SPIDER met with Chief Advisor of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, delegate of Hungary to GEO Prof. Zoltán Dunkel (m) and the Secretary General of HUNAGI (member of the  GSDI delegation to GEO) Gábor Remetey-Fülöpp (l) during the GEO Plenary held in the Romanian Parliament this morning. 
Some snapshots of the Romanian Parliament building, venue of the GEO V Plenary.

Digital Earth-UNGIWG/UNOOSA-GSDI high level informal talk in Bucharest


Prof. Guo Huadong (ISDE), Lóránt Czárán (UNOOSA) and Prof. Bas Kok (GSDI) met for an informal talk at the break of the GEO Vth Plenary Meeting held in Bucharest this afternoon. Image: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2008

GEOSS GCI and Registration Process


Ivan B. DeLoatch, Director of the US Federal Geographical Data Committe at USGS gave an in-depth overview on the GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI) and highlighted the process to register new services.

GSDI Statement at the GEO announced by President Prof Bas Kok today


GSDI Statement for the GEO Plenary, November 19-20, 2008 as announced by Prof. Bas Kok, President of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association this morning.

"The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI) is pleased to engage and contribute as a Participating Organization to the Group on Earth Observation and, in particular, to the realization of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, GEOSS. Currently, more than 80 countries are developing spatial data infrastructures that provide network-enabled access to data, maps, and base imagery, using a common set of standards for metadata, services, and data.. These standards, as well as best practices, are now registered in GEOSS and are critical to its function.

There are three opportunities of collaboration with GEO that the GSDI Association wishes to highlight.

First, countries developing SDIs are being encouraged to register their systems, services, and standards with GEOSS. The GEOSS registries then provide a resource directory for both GEO and GSDI communities.

Second, from an architectural point of view, the GSDI and GEOSS approaches are closely harmonized. To support the architectural approach, the GSDI community has developed a "SDI Cookbook" as a guidance that we offer as resource, and it includes a baseline of SDI-related standards promoting interoperability.

And third, in general, data sharing principles and practices in the SDI community are generally more open than those currently in the earth observation community, but we welcome the implementation of more open data sharing principles being considered within GEO -- principles that should be consistently applied to all earth observations and spatial data.

The GSDI Association will continue to work together with GEO at a technical level, however, we would like to explore the possibility of creating a more strategic alliance. The Association would like to amplify the success of both organizations and seek a similar level of ministerial and executive visibility and support of contributed systems, products, and services through coordinated efforts.

In closing, the next GSDI Conference, GSDI-11, will be held in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the 15th-19th of June 2009. We are proposing a track of presentations on GEO/GEOSS-related activities to demonstrate our common interest and synergies. We are pleased to acknowledge the confirmation of a keynote presentation by the Director of the GEO Secretariat, Dr. Jose Achache. The Association members welcome your attendance and participation in this upcoming biennial international conference. Thank you."

Monday, November 17, 2008

Vth GEO Plenary in Bucharest

GROUP ON EARTH OBSERVATIONS
For use of the media only; not an official document.
PRESS RELEASE
Bucharest conference to strengthenenvironmental monitoring of planet Earth Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) will save lives, improve resource management, and track humanity’s impact on the environment Bucharest, 14 November 2008 – Some 300 officials from the Group on Earth Observations’ member governments and organizations are meeting here on 19 and 20 November to plan the next three-year phase in the construction of a new global monitoring network that will support science-based decision-making about environmental risks and opportunities.
The Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS, is linking together the world’s diverse monitoring networks, instruments, data bases, models and other decision-support tools into one fully coordinated “system of systems”.
By integrating data from ocean buoys, weather stations, satellites, seismic monitors and innumerable other
technologies, GEOSS will empower decision-makers to address climate change, biodiversity loss, water
shortages, disease epidemics, natural disasters and other critical global challenges. “The satellites, ground sensors and other building blocks for measuring environmental parameters are now in place. They only need to be linked to one another to form a comprehensive ‘system of systems’, or GEOSS, that will track carbon stocks in our forests, forecast variations in food and water supplies, identify vulnerabilities to climate change and disease and provide other integrated and targeted information we need to address the world’s most pressing problems,” said GEO Director José Achache.
In Bucharest, the GEO annual plenary (GEO-V) aims to finalize and adopt the 2009-2011 work plan for constructing GEOSS. GEO members are contributing to this voluntary global project by expanding and interlinking their respective observation systems. The proposed new work plan aims to take GEOSS from its start-up phase to the implementation phase that will actually put the components of GEOSS into place. Key elements of the draft work plan include:
• Establishing the GEO Portal. The “GEOSS Common Infrastructure” consists of web-based portals;
clearinghouses for searching data, information and services; and registries containing information about
GEOSS. It will provide a “one-stop shopping” portal to help the users of Earth observations to access
and search for information more easily. The GEO community is currently evaluating the various
elements that have been put into place with the aim of finalizing the arrangements in 2009.
• Promoting free access to data. GEOSS can only succeed if Earth observation data is widely and freely
available to all interested users. GEO is building an international consensus that will make it possible to
adopt the GEOSS Data Sharing Principles at a Ministerial Summit in 2010.
• Advancing the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network. The complexity of biological diversity, and the
highly distributed nature of the systems and organizations that monitor it, make establishing the
“biodiversity arm” of GEOSS a particular challenge. The Bucharest meeting will be presented with an
implementation plan for making a biodiversity observation network (GEO BON) a reality.
• Building a system for monitoring forest carbon. GEO is responding to growing international interest in
tracking carbon flows by elaborating a plan for interlinking an array of existing and planned forest
carbon monitoring instruments and tools. The plenary meeting will be asked to give this plan the goahead.
The Group on Earth Observations was established in 2005 after the World Summit on Sustainable
Development (WSSD), the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries (G8) and three ministerial Earth
Observation Summits all called for improving existing observation systems. Its membership now includes 75
governments and the European Commission; 51 “participating organizations” also contribute to its work.
GEO is building the Global Earth Observation System of Systems on the basis of a 10-Year Implementation
Plan, which runs through the year 2015. GEOSS addresses nine priorities of critical importance to the future of
the human race: it will help countries to protect themselves against natural and human-induced disasters,
understand the environmental sources of health hazards, manage energy resources, respond to climate change
and its impacts, safeguard freshwater resources, improve weather forecasts, manage ecosystems, promote
sustainable agriculture, and conserve biodiversity.
Note to journalists: Journalists are invited to two back-to-back press conferences that will take place on
Wednesday, 19 November, in the Palace of the Parliament. The Government of Romania will brief in
Romanian at 12h30 and the GEO Co-Chairs will brief in English at 13h.
For more information, please see www.earthobservations.org or contact Anca Racheru of the Romanian Space Agency for accreditation information at +40 21 316 8722 or Michael Williams of the GEO Secretariat from 17-22 November at +41 79
572 9628 or mwilliams@geosec.org and from 24 November at +41 22 730 8293.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Some important news on UNGIWG and UNSDI

UN Complex at the Vienna International Centre. Image: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2008
Resolution on the United Nations Spatial Data Infrastructure was approved at the closed meeting of UNGIWG Members in Vienna on 7th November 2009.
The framework document was conditionally approved.
The Co-Chairs of UNGIWG will be given by UN OOSA (which supervises the SPIDER Network) and UN ECA, the Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Abbeba.
It is said, the Secretariat might be moved to Bonn soon.
Please look for the official news at the authentic homepage of UNGIWG at www.ungiwg.org

Friday, November 14, 2008

HUNAGI expressed its interest to host the ISDE-7 Conference in 2011

Meeting of the ExCom of Digital Earth chaired by Prof.Guo Huadong at the historical site of the Cupola of the Potsdam Observatory. Image: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2008
The Digital Earth Summit sessions are underway in the presence of Mr.Suha Ülgen, Director of the UNGIWG Secretariat (Geneva).
Yesterday the Executive Committee of Digital Earth had a formal meeting putting and discussing important topics on its agenda including the stage of the preparation of the Digital Earth Symposium will be held in Beijing (to be started on 9-9-2009...)
HUNAGI announced its continuous interest to host the next open Symposium (ie. in 2011) in Budapest. This expressed interest is supported by the Hungarian Association for Geo-information having over 100 institutional and organisational members), by its core members representing the National Mapping Agencies, local governments as well as the academic sector in geosciences. Yesterday also the European Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information expressed its support of the HUNAGI announcement. Details will be reported at the regular meeting of the National IYPE Committee hosted by the Hungarian Academy of Science scheduled for 8th December 2009.


HUNAGI Visuals resources, 2008

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Digital Earth Summit 2008 started

Spatial Data Infrastructure was well represented at the Summit: leaflets of EUROGI and GSDI Association were available on the pick-up table.

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Early Warning, Crisis and Emergency Services - Conference in Prague

Georg Magerl of UN OOSA wrote this morning:
"Dear Colleagues,
We would like to draw your attention to the following Symposium and inform
you that the deadline for the submission of abstracts has been extended to
15 November 2008:

Joint Symposium of ICA Working Group on Cartography in Early Warning and
Crises Management (CEWaCM) and JBGIS Geo-information for Disaster
Management (Gi4DM)

entitled:
"Cartography and Geoinformatics for Early Warning and Emergency Management:
Towards Better Solution
s"
to be held from 19-22 January 2009 in Prague, Czech Republic
For more information: http://c4c.geogr.muni.cz/index.html
Furthermore, we are pleased to announce that UNOOSA through the UN-SPIDER
Programme will provide air tickets to two participants to attend this
meeting. Preference will be given to young researchers/professionals that
have been accepted to present in the symposium and have submitted the full
paper, that are from a developing country, and that have been specifically
nominated by their institution or department to participate in this
international meeting.
If you are interested in being considered for one of the two air tickets
please inform the organisers when submitting your abstract:
c4c@geogr.muni.cz. Please also attach the endorsement from your institution
or department to participate in this meeting.
Best regards,
Georg MAGERL
Associate Expert
Office for Outer Space Affairs / UN-SPIDER
United Nations Office at Vienna
P.O.Box 500
A-1400 Vienna, AUSTRIA
Tel: +43-(1)-26060-4472
Fax: +43-(1)-26060-5830
E-Mail: georg.magerl at unoosa.org
http://www.unspider.org "

Friday, November 07, 2008

Lighting Session at the UNGIWG-9 Meeting

Suha Ülgen, Director of the UNGIWG Secretariat in Vienna. Image: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2008
Short summary will follow asap

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Participants of the UNGIWG-9 on 6th of November

UNGIWG-9 participants on November 6. Image: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2008
Additional photographs of the event:

UNSDI Stakeholder's notes and statements

After the introduction of the latest stage of UNSDI Framework by UNGIWG Co-Chair the invited stakeholders and potential partners were asked to comment and contribute with note or statements. Comment providers included among others GSDI Association, HUNAGI, GEO Secretariat, ICA, USAID. HUNAGI comments can be summarized as follow:
- expression of appreciation to be invited,
- HUNAGI is capable to play an interface role between UNSDI initiative and the Hungarian spatial data community
having over 100 institutions and organisations from governmental and private sectors, academia as well as industry by providing
- information dissemination
- awareness raising and capacity building
- generating feedbacks from the geospatial user community inside HUNAGI
in the interest to facilitate to reach the UNSDI initiative main goals. 

GSDI-11 promoted at the 9th UNGIWG Meeting


GSDI Board of Directors' member C.J.Ternborgh of ESRI submitted the GSDI-11 leaflets for the participants.
Also a GSDI-11 poster is available for promotion activities just received via EUROGI in e-form

SDI vs Neogeography

UN OOSA and UNGIWG Co-Chairs and Secretary opened the Open Session. Image: HUNAGI Visuals resource, 2008
United Nations Geographic Information Working Group (UNGIWG) Open Sessions started with panel discussion in the topic SDI vs Neogeography moderated by Roger Longhorn of GSDI, participated by Schuyler Earl (Entropyfree), Ed Parson (Google), Sam Bacharach (OGC) and Michael Gould (joined via Skype from University Jaume I) this morning

Recent visitors of the HUCO website as of 6th November 2008

Monday, November 03, 2008

Map World Forum in India with SDI Seminar chaired by Prof. R. Siva Kumar

Maj. Gen. Dr. R. Siva Kumar, CEO of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Division of the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India sent invitation and information this weekend on the Seminar devoted to Spatial Data Infrastructure as integrated part of the Map World Forum hosted by India in Hyderabad on 17 February 2009.
More information: www.nsdi.gov.in

UNSDI HUCO attends UNGIWG-9 by invitation

The UNGIWG will start tomorrow by a satellite Workshop on SDI orchestrated by Roger Longhorn in his capacity as WG Chair of the GSDI Association devoted to Economics.
Between the closed shop UNGIWG sessions on 5th and 7th November, one and half day will be devoted to discuss topics where UNSDI-related issues will be addressed. The Meetings will be hosted by the UN Office for Outer Space in Vienna.

Vice President of the European Commission on GMES and Kopernikus


Günter Verheugen, Vice President of the European Commission delivered a speech on the GMES and the launch of the Kopernikus  at the GMES Forum held in Lille in September 2008
Text of the Speech available at the official Press Release of the European Commission here:

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/430&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en