News in 2016
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FIG at Intergeo 2016
10-13 October 2016, Hamburg, Germany
Again in 2016 FIG participated in InterGeo, organised by the German FIG
member association DVW. The exhibition was large with 17,000
participants to the trade fair and 531 exhibitors.
Claudia Stormoen, FIG Office, Pekka Halme, Co-Conference Director for the Working Week 2017 in Helsinki, Finland and Henning Elmstrom from Denmark at the FIG stand.
FIG President Chryssy Potsiou was invited to the Opening Ceremony, and
held a speech in German for the organisers and the specially invited
participants to the opening. At the opening it was announced that
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hansjörg Kutterer
would take over the presidency of DVW after the late Karl-Friedrich
Thoene.
Hansjörg Kutterer at
the first plenary session
The overall theme of the conference was "Smart cities".
Chief executive of British Ordnance Survey, Nigel Clifford used the case study of
Manchester to show how geoinformation in the Internet of Things (IoT)
will shape our urban surroundings. second plenary speaker was Ron Bisio, vice president geospatial
at Trimble, who crafted smart cities scenarios in his keynote speech.
Digitalisation will affect all areas of future living, environmental
pollution, energy consumption, effective transportation and traffic
processes, civic dialogue and transparency, digital transformation in
the health sector and culture are just examples of areas that will
benefit from the GIS data that are and will be available.
FIG Vice President Rudolf Staiger also represented FIG during the trade
fair, and had, together with FIG Office, meetings with current FIG
Corporate Members hereunder Bentley and Leica. Many visitors and
exhibitors also visited the FIG stand. Some already knew FIG and were
acquainted with FIG activities, but there were also many good talks
about FIG with those who did not know FIG in advance.
Promotion of future FIG Events
The co-conference director of FIG Working Week 2017, Pekka Halme,
participated in the trade fair, promoting the conference and the
exhibition. This was also an opportunity for the President, Vice
President Staiger and Pekka Halme to work on the preparations for the
Working Week, hereunder to design interesting and inspiring plenary
sessions. Orhan Ercan, who is both new elected FIG Vice President and
Co-Congress Director of FIG Congress 2018 also attended Intergeo to
promote the congress both towards potential participants and exhibitors.
Member meeting with FIG Task Force on Commission Structure
DVW had kindly provided a meeting room for FIG for a meeting on the
Commission Structure together with the FIG Task Force during Intergeo
for those FIG members that were present. Mikael Lilje, Chair of the Task
Force and incoming Vice President, presented the survey that took place during August among all FIG
members, and this survey together with the progress so far of the Task
Force was discussed between members, the Task Force and members of FIG
Council. One commet was that the difference between Commissions and
Networks should be more clear, and also how Task Forces can be used more
efficiently for the response of surveyors to trends and current
problems.
Two further member meetings are planned in the coming month in Ivory
Coast in connection with the Africa Network meeting, and in Fiji
combined with an Asia/Pacific Network meeting. The response from the
meetings together with further inviestigation will be included in a
report from the Task Force that will be presented to the General
Assembly in May 2017 in Helsinki, Finland.
Chryssy Potsiou at the opening ceremony of Intergeo
that took place in the beautiful town hall of Hamburg.
Louise Friis-Hansen
31 October 2016
