FIG Working Week in Paris 13–17 April 2003
Still in the Frontline – FIG returns to Paris to celebrate
its 125th Anniversary
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The International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) organized its 26th
General Assembly and Working Week in Paris, France 13-17 April 2003 just
prior to Easter. This and the 125th Anniversary of FIG was the reason why
not only 600 delegates but also almost 200 accompanying persons from more
than 60 countries attended. Despite the very short preparation time, the
high number of participants is a clear indication that attendance of the
FIG Working Weeks has permanently raised to a level of 500-1,000. One
reason for the increased participation of accompanying persons, in
particular, was that the gala dinner to celebrate the 125th Anniversary
was held at the Château de Versailles. More than 450 participants joined
the dinner in the Hall of Mirrors of this perhaps most prestigious venue
in France and even in Europe with champagne and an excellent dinner that
followed a private visit to the royal chambers.
Paris was not selected to the venue of the 125th Anniversary till 10
months prior to the conference after it was agreed at the General Assembly
in Washington to postpone the working week planned for Israel to 2009. The
reason for selecting Paris for the venue was to have the celebrations in
the city in which FIG was founded in 1878 by seven European nations. The
two French member associations of FIG, Ordre des Géomètres-Experts (OGE)
and Association Française de Topographie (AFT) in a very short time
managed to organize an excellent working week with full technical and
social programme.
The venue itself was the École Nationale des Sciences Géographiques
(ENSG), which has been located in Marne la Vallée, one of the new cities
in greater Paris since 1997. ENSG and IGN (Institut Géographique
National), www.ign.fr offered modern and most adequate facilities both for
the technical conference and for the commercial and professional
exhibitions. Almost 40 firms participated the commercial exhibition. With
some professional and conference stands they filled the main hall of ENSG
for two days. ENSG showed that the FIG working week could be held in
university surroundings if the facilities are favorable.
The opening ceremony was held at the Salons de l'Aveyron in Bercy close
to the François Mitterand Library. At the opening ceremony welcome
addresses were given by Bernard Bour, Chair of the local organizing
committee, André Radier, President of OGE, Michel Kasser,
President of AFT and Prof. Holger Magel, President of FIG. The
audience was also addressed by Bruno Parent, Deputy General
Director of the French Cadastre and Bertrand Levy, Director General
of IGN.
The opening ceremony was followed by the 125th Anniversary Session with
keynote presentations from Prof. Michel Godet, University of Paris,
Mr. Jan de Graeve who spoke about the founding meeting in Paris in
1878 and Dr. Andreas Drees, who gave a vision of the role of FIG in
a vulnerable world.
The three-day technical conference started every morning with a plenary
session. The topics of these sessions were cadastre, public and private
systems in geoinformation and future techniques. Keynote addresses were
given by international experts like Concepción Camarero (Spain),
Pierre Clergeot (France), Paul van der Molen (FIG Commission
7), Nick Land (Executive Director of EuroGeographics), François
Salgé (France), Dr. Holger Schade (General Manager of SICAD
Geomatics) and Luis G. Hecht (Open GIS Consortium), Monika
Sester (Germany) and March Bernard (Spot Image).
In addition to the plenary sessions there were 27 technical sessions
running three at a time for three days. In these sessions 120 papers were
presented. The interest in the conference was so big, that for the first
time during a working week, FIG tried poster presentations. Despite
smaller problems the concept proved to be successful giving opportunity to
many authors to make their case studies broader known. Totally about 60
posters were briefly introduced in the sessions and then presented in the
exhibition area.
The topics of the technical programme covered all commissions and the
main topics of the current work plans. This allowed an effective start to
several working groups in their work to prepare their final report to FIG
2006. It approved that the concept of having more inter-commission
sessions was successful, even though some commissions – commissions 3 and
7 mainly – from year to year attract much more papers than they can easily
accommodate in their programme. All papers were published already prior
the working week on the FIG web site which made it possible for the
participants to select the most interesting sessions. The papers are
available at
http://www.fig.net/figtree/pub/fig_2003/.
The organising committee of FIG 2003 wanted to support students and
young surveyors to attend. It was a great pleasure that almost 70 students
were able to participate, in addition ten young surveyors (under 32 years)
got a grant that covered free registration and support to travel and
accommodation costs.
Technical tours during the week were not as well attended as one could
expect but the main reason was that the working week programme with
professional conference, administrative meetings, exhibitions etc. is
quite hectic and many delegates have no time for “escape programmes”
whether it is professional or social. Technical tours were made to Reims
to see the high speed train LGV and visit surveying companies and to Le
Défense in Paris.
The General Assemblies on April 13 and 17 were well attended. In both
sessions 52 member associations out of 89 were present. Number of
participants to these open meetings was about 200. The General Assembly
adopted following new members as member associations: the Chamber of
Surveyors and Cartographers from Slovakia, the Sociedade Brasileira de
Cartografia, Geodesia, Fotogrametria e Sensoriamento Remoto (SBC) and the
Collegio de Ingenieros Topografos de Costa Rica. At the same time it was
recorded that the second member associations from Malaysia and Israel have
resigned from the membership. The General Assembly was obliged to expel
the former Yugoslavian association because the association has been
dissolved.
FIG has got several new corporate members since the congress in
Washington, DC. These are: Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions
(category A), Sicad Geomatics (B), Geoexpert (E) and the Institut
Cartogàfic de Catalunya (F). Further ESRI has upgraded its membership
category to level A.
Fourteen new academic members were recorded since Washington congress.
This increases the number of academic members to 39 from 62 countries.
Constantin Bah from Benin was admitted as a new correspondent.
The General Assembly appointed Robert W. Foster, the immediate
past president an honorary president of FIG. Dr. Tom Kennie from UK
was appointed an honorary member. They have both served not only in two
councils but also made great contributions to the federation as members of
task forces and working parties in the very interesting time when FIG
changed its administration to a more democratic and persistent. The
General Assembly further confirmed the end of term report of the US
Council.
The remaining members of the German Council Vice President Bettina
Petzold and Congress Director Thomas Gollwitzer were introduced
to the FIG delegates. The election of further two Vice Presidents will
take place in Athens in May 2004 at the same time when the election of all
Commissions chairs elect will take place. Therefore the Nomination Review
Group to prepare these elections was appointed in Paris. It will be
chaired by Robert Foster.
The German Council will prioritize international co-operation including
good relations to the United Nations in the coming years. The new UN
network that will be in charge of this work is chaired by President Magel.
The General Assembly recorded its best thanks to Prof. Ian Williamson
who has had the leading role in the UN co-operation for several years.
The General Assembly used quite a lot of time to learn from the
Commissions. They have made good progress in implementing their work plans
which were adopted last year in Washington. The meetings in Paris were the
first for the new chairs and they were very pleased with the large
attendance at the meetings.
To create more discussions and change of experiences at the General
Assembly the Council had invited five speakers to make presentations on
regional activities. These included reports on regional co-operation
within the Francophone group, in the newly established Arab Federation of
Surveyors and from Africa, Asia and South America. FIG was challenged
especially to create models to create surveying curricula and to increase
the level of professional qualifications in Africa and Latin America.
Support for regional organizations dealing with the main problems got
support. Unfortunately the tight schedule did not allow much discussion.
One of the new initiatives in the FIG work plan 2003-2006 is the FIG
World Report on Good Practices. This concept is based on a database that
will include good or even best practices and case studies of all
disciplines of the surveying profession covering all ten FIG commissions.
There is a lot of material already from the commission projects and
conference papers that can be included, as well as policy level guidelines
like the Bathurst Declaration and the Nairobi Statement and e.g. ethical
codes, FIG agenda 21. The other part of the database will consist of
reviewed papers from the conferences and seminars. The third level will
consist of structured national reports and answers to ten “hot questions”
on each commission expertise that will give a global overview on basic
questions in surveying. The World Report is planned to be published online
on the FIG website and as a CD.
The FIG Foundation has managed to start its work. First thirteen grants
were given in December 2002 and another seven grants were decided in April
in Paris. The Foundation managed to get good response to specific
donations in conjunction with the 125th Anniversary. Three member
associations namely DVW from Germany, SVVK from Switzerland and DdL from
Denmark each donated more than US$ 1,000 to the Foundation. Together with
voluntary donations and donations from the registration fees and
Foundation Dinner which was combined with the Gala Dinner in Versailles
well over 15,000 euros were collected to the Foundation to help young
surveyors in the research. In addition to grants from the funds the
Foundation has managed to establish special software grant programmes with
the corporate members. The latest concept is donation to the Foundation
from sales of ESRI software purchased by members at a reduced fee.
The Working Week 2008 was admitted to Stockholm, it will be part of the
100th anniversary of the Swedish member association SLF. Next year the
Working Week will take place in Athens 21-27 May 2004. Already before that
FIG will continue to organize regional events. The 2nd Regional Conference
will be held in Marrakech, Morocco December 2-5, 2003. The next regional
conference is planned for Jakarta, Indonesia in October 2004.
13 May 2003 |
