International Conference on Spatial Data Infrastructures 2010

International conference on spatial data infrastructures 2010 has been held from 15th to 17th September 2010 at FON University in Skopje, Macedonia. The conference included contributions of 114 participants/authors from 23 different countries. At the opening session, two key note speeches were given by Prof Chryssy Potsiou from Greece in Behalf of FIG with the title "Spatial information management and the current rapid processes of urbanisation", and Prof Mauro Salvemini from Italy in behalf of EUROGI with the title "European and International dimension of GI management for societal and environmental sustainability".

The conference was opened by host Rector of the FON University Prof. Aleksandar Nikolovksi. At the opening session, in behalf of the organiser Geo-SEE, its president Prof Bashkim Idrizi gave certificates to all co-organisers and sponsors of all categories. Within the opening session, the certificate of merit has been given to Prof Boris Nikodinovski, president of Scientific Institution "Independent Researcher Dr. Boris Nikodinovski", for ten successful organised conferences in a period from year 2001 to 2009, as main organiser and chair of the conferences.

Whole conference was organised in ten sessions, i.e. opening session, six sessions with presentations, two with workshops and closing session. Within six presentation sessions included 28 presentations out of the 38 in the programme. Most discussed themes in the conference were: NSDI, INSPIRE, WebGIS, geoportals, mapping, SDI, GSDI, regional and urban management, SDI development and assessment, commercial and open source software, coordinate frames, cadastral data, land management, data harmonisation, cooperation between stake holders, policy, strategy and legal aspects, ext. At the closing session, the document with conclusions has been approved by the participants, as conference resolution. Conference was closed by Prof Chryssy Potsiou, representative of FIG.

Within the conference, beside the key note speeches and presentations of papers, two workshops have been organised also. First workshop was related to the efforts for data harmonisation through the Humbold project, chaired by Mauro Salvemini from Italy and Anders Ostman from Sweden, and the second one for the possibilities of utilisation of Open source software, chaired by Arnaud Deleurme from Greece and Naumce Lazarevski from Macedonia.

At the end of conference, participants have agreed on the importance that Geo-SEE (South-East European Research Association on Geo Sciences) will organize a follow-up conference within 2-3 years to address the current SDI needs and assess the progress in the South-Eastern European region.
The conference was organised by Geo-SEE (South-East Europe Research Association on Geo Sciences) and supported by six co-organisers (FIG, EUROGI, Chamber of Authorized Surveyors of Macedonia, FON University, ITC and Geography department of SUT), 2 general sponsors (FON University and Evkartenn), 2 silver sponsors (Intergraph and Esri), 4 media sponsors (GeoConnexion, GIM International, Vector1Media and Evkartenn), 2 sponsors (NIKO computers and Geoinformatika), 23 members of the international organising committee, 9 members of the local organising committee, and 18 members of the international review commission. Representatives of the Agency for Real Estate Cadastre of Macedonia, Kosova Cadastral Agency, Hungarian Association for Geo-information, FIG commission 3, Albanian National Institute of Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture of Kosova, Hungarian Cascadoss Association, Statistical Office of Kosovo, Ministry of Environment and Climate Protection of Germany, Kosovas Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, Macedonian Spatial Planning Agency, Macedonian Public Enterprise Makedonija Pat, Slovenian Forestry Institute ext., also attended.