ISPRS and Africa

In my contribution to the first ISPRS page in GIM I noted that we were making the development of ISPRS in Africa a priority during the period 2004-2008. I will now give some more details of what we are doing. I have visited Africa three times in the last eighteen months. First, to attend the FIG Working Week in Cairo, then at Africa GIS 2005 in Pretoria we organised a tutorial on use of high-resolution satellite data and spatial data infrastructure and, with IEEE and AARSE, organised a workshop on GEOSS. I also attended the FIG Regional Meeting in Accra. At these conferences I took the opportunity to organise meetings for ISPRS members and those interested in joining. These have been very valuable for meeting people and understanding local problems. ISPRS will be organising sessions and a pre-conference workshop at the AARSE Conference in Cairo in November. Most of the work of ISPRS is done through the Commissions and Working Groups, which organise meetings and workshops. The bulk of these are in the Northern Hemisphere but we have four working groups with an African chair or regional co-ordinator.

Capacity Building
ISPRS Council has decided to concentrate capacity-building efforts on Africa as there is clear need in this region and it is also where ISPRS members need support. We will maintain contact with African members through an email network, by attendance by a Council member at one meeting in Africa per year, and through the organisation of a members meeting every two years. (See interview with ISPRS president Ian Dowman, GIM International, July 2006.)

Challenges
ISPRS is seeking to establish its position as a recognised player at the highest level of international activity, where the scientific and strategic background of ISPRS is needed. We have the human resources and the expertise: we need to ensure that these are used for the advantage of society as a whole. However, we have a long way to go. We need more Africans involved in ISPRS; we need more meetings to be held in Africa, and we need more collaboration between other organisations involved in geospatial data and working in Africa to ensure that our joint resources are used to the best advantage. We also need to hear from Africans on what they want from ISPRS, and we will then do our best to fulfil these requirements. We welcome any suggestions or offers of participation.


First ISPRS Symposium

This year ISPRS will hold eight ‘Mid-term Symposia’, one for each of its Technical Commissions. The first of these, organised by Technical Commission 7 on ‘Fundamental Physics and Modelling’, was held at the ITC in the Netherlands on the theme ‘From Pixels to Processes’. It was attended by more than five hundred participants from more than 75 countries, making this a truly international event. Opening keynote speaker was Prof. Richard Bamler from the DLR in Germany. There were 24 technical sessions, three poster sessions, and five, very well attended pre-symposium workshops. In addition there were some special sessions, plenary sessions, and a very nice social programme. Very noticeable at this major remote-sensing event was the large number of younger researchers (both PhD researchers and post-doctoral) who were afforded opportunities to pre-sent oral papers. This augers well for the future of remote sensing. For the proceedings and further information please visit the symposium website (url below).