PRESENTATIONS FOR THE PLENARY SESSIONS ARE NOW AVAILABLE HERE
PRESENTATIONS FOR THE CONCURRENT SESSIONS ARE NOW AVAILABLE HERE

Photo by courtesy of Nearmap.com

ISDE7 Wrap Up

The 7th International Symposium on Digital Earth (ISDE7) was held in Perth, Western Australia on 23-25 August 2011, and brought together over 800 delegates from 21 countries, and over 100 speakers from China, Europe, the United States, Japan, Brazil, Iran, Korea, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand for a global view of digital earth technology in action

The papers presented at the conference highlighted the huge variety of applications for digital earth technology now available; and described how the digital earth has underpinned major international projects and events, including the Three Gorges Dam project and the response to the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster.

The conference also expanded international cooperation through the establishment of a framework for cooperation in joint investigations and scientific exchange concerning earth observation science and technologies between Australia, Brazil, Canada and China.

At the opening ceremony for the symposium, Professor Guo Huadong, Secretary General of the International Society for Digital Earth, announced the new President of ISDE as Professor John Richards from the Australian National University.

Incoming President of the  International Society for Digital Earth, Professor Richards from the Australian National University, opened the conference by outlining the Digital Earth Vision 2020. The Vision updates the original concept developed by former Vice President Al Gore of the United States; and highlights the extraordinary progress made in digital earth technology over the past decade, the opportunities to extend this through new approaches such as sensor web and crowd sourcing, and the global challenges these can address including population increase and ageing, and impacts on demands for energy, food and water.

Other keynote presentations included:

Chris Holmes, President of OpenGeo, discussed “Building the Same Digital Earth – spatial data infrastructure and architectures of participation”, focussing on the role open source software has played in developing community and user-driven information systems.

Elizabeth Lee, Director of Projects and Development at CyArk, discussed digitally preserving cultural heritage sites through collecting, archiving and providing open access to data created by laser scanning, digital modeling, and other state-of-the-art technologies.

Ian Jackson, retired, formerly of the British Geological Survey, outlined the establishment of the global geological information service called ‘OneGeology’, describing the challenges of developing global standards and the broad benefits of the information delivered to society through this initiative.

Jack Dangermond, Founder and President of Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) – via video address, provided a long-term local and global perspective on the evolution of digital earth technology over the past decades, and new directions for application of this technology.

The conference made extensive use of social media technology to extend discussion of ideas presented at the conference, and to enable this discussion to be shared with the broader global community during the event. The panel discussion on GIS computing in the cloud incorporated questions and ideas captured through social media as part of the session, adding a dynamic exciting element to the discussion.

ISDE7 was held in-conjunction with the 2011 WALIS Forum and State Natural Resource Management Conference. The WALIS Forum is one of the most popular and longest running spatial conference events in Australia. WALIS, the Western Australian Land Information System, is a unique and highly successful partnership for sharing location information across government, the private sector and academia; and celebrated its 30th Anniversary at this event.

The 2011 State Natural Resource Management Conference highlighted the long-standing and successful use of location information and technology to support natural resource and environmental management. Western Australia, a globally recognised home to biodiversity, is a widely recognised leader in the application of this technology to manage the vast, sparsely populated regional areas that underpin the local economy.

At the closing ceremony for the conference the hosts for the next ISDE Summit in 2012 were announced as Wellington, New Zealand; and the hosts for the 8th International Symposium on Digital Earth will be Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia.

The 7th International Symposium on Digital Earth (ISDE7) was sponsored by the Australian Government Caring for Our Country Program (Gold), Esri Australia and Landgate (Silver), NGIS, Helping Hand Group, 1Spatial, PSMA Australia Ltd, Whelans, Spatial Vision and Amristar.

The organisers wish to acknowledge the contribution of Landgate and the CRC for Spatial Information for their financial and operational support in ensuring the conference was a success.

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For an different perspective on the ISDE7 Conference, please see the wrap up by Piers Higgs from Gaia Resources.

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The Conference Organisers would like to acknowledge the support of: