GSDI 15 World Conference to be Held in Taiwan in 2016

The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) Association and the Taiwan Association of Disaster Prevention Industry (TADPI) have announced the GSDI 15 Conference will be held in Taipei, Taiwan, from 28 November to 2 December 2016, with strong support from Ministry of the Interior (MOI). The theme of the conference is Spatial Enablement in the Smart Homeland.

Taiwan experiences frequent natural disasters from earthquakes, tropical storms, flooding and landslides. Because of these threats to the environment and population, the disaster prevention industry in Taiwan has developed advanced technology, including ICT (information and communications technology), applications for spatial data, and a policy of open data to help people prepare for disasters and to facilitate start-ups with opportunities to create innovative products and services for disaster prevention.

The GSDI 15 World Conference will take place in the city of Taipei, at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, from 28 November to 2 December 2016. Potential subject areas for the Call for Abstracts and Papers (to follow shortly) include:

Smart Homeland themes:

• Smart Cities, Smart Territories and Smart Environments
• Open Data and Open Government
• Open Data Repositories
• Land Information Systems
• Observatories (environmental, citizen, health, urban)                    

Disaster Management, Reduction and Mitigation themes:

• Emergency Management (logistics and telecommunications)
• Risk Modelling and Assessment
• Protecting Critical Infrastructure
• Earthquake Mitigation Challenges
• Flooding and Landslides – risk assessment, mitigation and management
• Innovation in Disaster Management Technology
• Examples of Disaster Management ‘Best Practice’

Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) Development themes:

• Location-based Services for enabling Smart Environments
• VGI, Crowdsourcing, and Citizen Science roles
• SDI in the Cloud – Challenges and Solutions
• Indoor SDI and Personal SDI Developments

Technology themes:

• CyberGIS
• 3D/4D Spatial Data visualisation and analytics
• Earth Observation
• Sensor Web / Internet of Things (IoT) and Linked Data
• UAVs and Remote Sensing
• Geospatial Big Data Management and Analytics

GSDI 15 is jointly organised by the GSDI Association and one of its two Members based in Taiwan, TADPI, with strong support from Ministry of the Interior. TADPI is a non-profit organisation that facilitates members from the government and private sectors in cross-disciplinary cooperation and risk management and reduction. The ultimate goals of TADPI members are to provide turnkey solutions for disaster prevention and management to create smart, resilient and sustainable cities worldwide.

For more information, contact Roger Longhorn, GSDI secretary-general, at rlonghorn@gsdi.org or visit the GSDI Association website.