FIG Congress Kicks off in Istanbul

The four-yearly FIG Congress kicked off on Monday 7 May in Istanbul with a spectacular Turkish dance performance, after which officials held a more formal opening ceremony. FIG President Chryssy Potsiou, as the first keynote speaker of the plenary session, gave a short overview of her achievements over the last four years and called upon young surveyors to become – and remain – active in FIG in order to become truly global professionals.

She showed that technologies like IoT, blockchain and big data are shaping the future of society and are increasing the importance of the geospatial field in general, and of surveyors in particular.

Chryssy Potsiou will be stepping down as FIG president at the end of this week, meaning a new president will be elected. Candidates for the presidency of FIG are Rudolf Staiger from Germany and Brian Coutts from New Zealand. The 26^th FIG Congress is being held at the Istanbul Convention Center in Turkey from 6-11 May, based around the theme of ‘Embracing our smart world where the continents connect: enhancing the geospatial maturity of societies’.