INTERGEO 2009 Leads the Way Out from the Economic Crisis –
FIG 2010 Promotion well received at the Leading Geo Exhibition
Karlsruhe, Germany, 22-24 September 2009
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Karlsruhe conference and exhibition centre offered an excellent
venue and surroundings for INTERGEO 2009 and its 16,000 visitors. |
Dr.
Karl-Friedrich Thöne, President of DVW was very satisfied
to the outcome and participation figures at INTERGEO 2009. |
INTERGEO 2009 exceeded the expectations of the organisers. INTERGEO, the
leading trade fair in geo business, attracted over 16,000 visitors including
a further rise in the proportion of international visitors to a total of 22
per cent, and 1,450 congress participants. The congress and the trade fair
did far more than the expectations of DVW (Deutsche Verein für
Vermessungswesen e.V. – Gesellschaft für Geodäsie, Geoinformation und
Landmanagement; the German Association of Surveying – German Society for
Geodesy, Geoinformation and Land Management). According to comments from the
exhibitors the sales and business contacts were in increase compared to last
year’s show.
According to Dr. Karl-Friedrich Thöne, President of DVW, the
result was extremely good in the current economic situation. President Thöne
was especially happy that participant figures to the conference increased
compared to previous years. He considered that this was due to the refreshed
concept of the conference.
Themes of the conference were early warning systems in risk and disaster
management; sustainable construction in finance and bank crisis; and energy
and environment issues with a view in the European environment policies.
The main keynote presentation was made by Willi Zimmermann who in
his presentation “Land resources in the context of political and
ecological crossroads” emphasized the interdependency between climate
change, population growth, financial crisis, the global economy
(globalisation) and political security on land resources. He pointed out
that 40 countries can be considered fragile in relation to political
instability which also closely relates to conflicts on land. He made an
interesting comparison on unacceptable divide in professional capacities:
Germany for example has six times more surveyors with academic background
than the 52 African states (around 26,000 compared to 4,500 in Africa). And
even more: the six leading countries with long-standing professional
educational infrastructure in Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa,
Morocco and Egypt) make up 90 % of all surveyors in Africa. What about the
rest? Willi Zimmermann estimated that the absolute minimum number of
professional surveyors in developing countries should be one surveyor to
serve 100,000 people. He further challenged DVW and FIG to find a strategy
in the geodetic world for fighting the reality of the global geodetic divide
between those who have (100 nations) and those who do not have the surveying
infrastructure and capacity (Zimmermann’s estimated that this is the case in
the remaining 95 countries). He also called for geodetic contributions for
building global governance by providing global public goods such as GNSS and
GEOSS as well as FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Management of
Land.
FIG had a visible role at the INTERGEO exhibition when FIG 2010
organisers were invited to exhibit and promote in Karlsruhe the next FIG
Congress in Sydney. The FIG Congress booth hosted by Congress Director Paul Harcombe and his team was visited by more than 2,000 visitors who
were interested to visit “downunder” in April 2010.
FIG Director and Vice President Matt Higgins met also with
representatives of main FIG corporate members and discussed the co-operation
between FIG and its corporate members as well as the programme of FIG 2010.
These meetings included discussions with Leica Geosystems, ESRI, Trimble,
Topcon, Bentley, Topcon-Sokkia, Blom International, Grontmij and several
media partners that are FIG corporate members (GIM International,
Geo:connexion and Geoinformatics). Contacts to new potential corporate
members were also made. INTERGEO 2009 also offered a good opportunity to
meet with FIG members from Austria, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and
others.
IINTERGEO 2010 will be held in Cologne 5-7 October 2010.
Read more:
Impressions from the INTERGEO trade show: Trimble... |
... Blom International (former FIG Vice President
Ralf Schroth
un the middle. .. |
... and TOPCON.
|
Congress Director
Paul Harcombe and Johannes Schwarz,
President of Geomatics Division of Leica Geosystems that is the
titanium sponsor of FIG 2010. |
Wolf-Dietrich Gierth, Congress Director of INTERGEO 2009
together with FIG 2010 team looking for winners at the booth draw.
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FIG Director (in the middle) and Rector
Alexander P. Karpik
(second from right) and Prof. Vladimir Seredovich (second
from left) from the Siberian State Academy of Geodesy, Russian
Federation. |
Media centre of INTERGEO 2009. |
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13 October 2009
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