The general assembly that took place in Beijing in July 2008 included the present writer as Latin-American regional representative. The main purpose of this function is to promote the activities of ISPRS in the region, help members to become more active at commission and working-group level, and to help them benefit from all this. Another important responsibility is organising a regional ISPRS conference in Latin-America. The first task here consists of updating the contact list of Latin-American regional ISPRS members; there are currently ten ordinary members, two regional, one sustaining member and one associate. We plan to run workshops and training courses before and after the conference.

On behalf of SELPER, one of the regional members, I also submitted an application form for ISPRS assistance for the Fourteenth Symposium that will be held in Guanajuato, México in November 2010 (See website 1).

The Sixth Latin American ESRI Users conference in Bogotá, Colombia was the scene for a one-day GIS seminar for university professors, augmented by 45 teachers from 45 countries. One result of this meeting was the inauguration of a competition the winner of which would be awarded the honour of presenting a paper at one of the ISPRS congresses.

The Conference of International Cartography Association (ICC09) held in Chile featured active participation by Dr Ammatzia Peled, second vice-president, and Dr Martien Molenaar, president of the educational commission (See 2). Many countries were represented at this conference, most of all attendees being of course Latin-American members. An opportunity arose here to put on show ISPRS, its objectives and organisation.

ISPRS was also present at the 28th SELPER plenary meeting held in Santiago de Chile, where there was a chance to discuss common activities for the coming years; significant here was the participation of nine Lain-American countries.

In co-operation with Dr Ian Dowman, ISPRS first vice-president, a Latin American Remote Sensing Week, LARS, is scheduled for October 2010 in Santiago de Chile (see 3), organised by the Chilean Air Force.

I have been very much involved as member of the technical committee.

Finally, in September 2009 I was invited to the council meeting hosted by ITC, Enschede, in the Netherlands, where I was able to acquaint myself with procedural and organisational aspects and activities of ISPRS.

The ISPRS Foundation

Since 2004 The ISPRS Foundation has:
• Received more than $210,000 in donations and grants
• Provided grants to more than 50 individuals to attend workshops and conferences
• Funded two Computer Aided Teaching Contests
• Funded a major award for outstanding performance in spatial sciences
The ISPRS Foundation needs your donation to continue its work,
go to: www.isprs.org/foundation/donations/