UNIGIS Salzburg @ Capturing Reality Forum

The Capturing Reality Forum took place at the Salzburg Congress in Salzburg, Austria, from 23-25 November 2015. The Forum provided an inspiring platform for professionals to meet, learn and share ideas with industry’s best with a focus on technologies of laser scanning, LiDAR and 3D data capture and modeling.

A tendency can be observed, in which photogrammetry in near real-time processing plays a significant role in obstacle detection and semantic recognition from images to be implemented in road traffic solutions. The major problem is, to filter out the relevant data from massive image data, says keynote speaker, Luc Van Gool (ETH Zürich). In this context LIDAR and photogrammetry have been competing for some time. UNIGIS Salzburg offers a photogrammetry course and a LIDAR course will start in early 2016.

UNIGIS Salzburg participated at the Forum and provided information at the UNIGIS booth. An UNIGIS Come-Together with after-conference drinks and interesting talks took place on Tuesday.

UNIGIS Salzburg @ Capturing Reality Forum

UNIGIS Academic Excellence Prize 2015

Winners of the UNIGIS Academic Excellence Prize 2015

UNIGIS UK celebrates its 25th anniversary of the first intake in Manchester on October 22-24.  During this meeting the UNIGIS

International Association (UIA) announced the winners of its 2015 Academic Excellence Prize.

This award, initiated in 2008, is presented to the student, or students, nominated by their UNIGIS sites for submitting the best MSc thesis (or paper) during the academic year. This year the competition was very tight with nine excellent high quality MSc theses being considered by the review panel. In the end the panel decided to grant three award winning theses.

The joint winners are of the Academic Excellence Prize for 2015 are Vincent van Altena (UNIGIS Amsterdam) and Rachel Antcliffe (UNIGIS UK). Adrianna Valenti (UNIGIS USA) received the third place award. The Review Panel would like to congratulate these individuals and the other candidates for their high quality of work. The two first prize winners are rewarded with a prize of € 800 each. The runner up prize winner gets € 200. All winners also receive a free ticket to the annual GI Forum, held in July in Salzburg.

Winning topics:

• Vincent van Altena - Improvement of automatic generalization of manmade water networks for topographic maps by context-dependent pruning
• Rachel Antcliffe - An evaluation of the Council Tax band as an indicator of household size for small are population estimation
• Adrianna Valenti - Estimating populations at risk in data-poor environments: a geographically disaggregated analysis of Boko Haram terrorism

The actual awards will be handed over to the winners during the GI Forum in July 2016. 

West is up? Nevermind!

Meeting for an introductory workshop in Salzburg last weekend, our new UNIGIS professional students were already perfectly working together making THEIR map. It consists of 23 (quite active and human ;-) ) symbols, representing 23 home locations between Kiel and Klagenfurt and between Bern and Vienna.

"Collective mapping"

While one might argue this map fails to meet several cartographic conventions including correct orientation, we would reply that map orientation does not matter at all, as long as they got good orientation for the intensive year of UNIGIS-studies to come. All the best to you for this challenging endeavour!

Upcoming U_Lecture on Smart Mobility & Geodata October 21, 5-6 PM

Wed October 21, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM (CET):

"Smart Mobility and Geodata" 

Dr. Marianne Linde, member Board of Directors Geodan 

Gerrit Schipper, specialist in information science and automotive industry

In this edition of the UNIGIS Lectures we will talk about the role of geodata in the possibilities that Smart Mobility has to offer nowadays and in future. The automotive industry seems ready for a mobility revolution, but is our broader (geo data) infrastructure and what role is there for our geo-ict experts? Join our Smart Mobility & Information experts Marianne Linde and Gerrit Schipper on October 21 in our quest to find answers to these and other intriguing questions. 

Marianne Linde is a member of the Board of Directors of Geodan, a Dutch company specialised in geo-ict products and services. She is responsible for launching new solutions for Smart Mobility and Smart City challenges. Until 2015 Marianne Linde was Director of Innovation at the TNO Program 'Urban Development' . 

Gerrit Schipper is a specialist in information science and has gained a lot of experience in the automotive industry, dealing with the collection and distribution of traffic information. 

This webinar is moderated by Dr. Niels van Manen, Coordinator UNIGIS Amsterdam.

Register here. 

UNIGIS at GeoSmart Asia '2015 - Kuala Lumpur

UNIGIS was invited to contribute to the GeoSmart Asia 2015 (GSA) conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from September 29^th to October 1st, 2015 and to co-organise the 'Geospatial Youth Forum' bringing academia, industry, organisations and students onto a common platform for promoting career-oriented one-on-one interaction. GSA is one of the largest regional conferences focussed on geospatial themes in S/E Asia and is being organised in different countries across the region. UNIGIS has been entrusted with a prominent role of conducting Geospatial Capacity Building sessions at the event since 2005 and this was the 11^th such continuous session coordinated by UNIGIS at this international event.

 

The Participants of 'Geospatial Youth Forum' 

Dr. Shahnawaz (Director, UNIGIS S/E Asia) gave framework presentation and moderated the forum involving about 100 participants from China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The first session was designed for a panel discussion involving geospatial experts, followed by a competitive session of student presentations.

Four distinguished panelists i.e. Prof. Nitin K Tripathi (Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand), Prof. Madya Dr. Alias Sood (University Putra Malaysia, Selangor), Dr. Lam Kuok-Choy (National University of Malaysia, Bangi) and Mr. John Whitehead (Sales Director, Asia-Pacific, Trimble, Singapore) exchanged their experiences and visions about geospatial education, business and careers in the emerging ASEAN Economic Community.

Ms. Nur Hakimah Asnawi

The last session triggered a critical open-floor discussion among experts, professionals and students focussed on the status of geospatial education and geospatial career opportunities in the forthcoming ASEAN Economic Community. 

The forum attendees largely expressed that there is a need of re-structuring geospatial education in the region as well as to introduce alternative modes of delivery for various target groups. Most of the in-service professional participants expressed that it is high time to launch short-cycle programmes for professionals not necessarily leading to academic degree qualifications.

The jury conferred the ‘Best Student Paper’ award on Ms. Nur Hakimah Asnawi from National University of Malaysia, Bangi who presented her paper on 'Landuse Landcover Changes in Gombak, Selangor - 1989-2014'.

Master Thesis workshop in Salzburg

From 18^th to 19^th of September more than 20 students from the UNIGIS MSc 2014 course presented a current status of their Master Thesis during the workshop in Salzburg. High quality presentations from various sectors of GI and a lively discussion among students and the teaching team led to an informative and entertaining meeting. All the best for the final steps!

UNIGIS MSc 2014

New U_Lecture on Platform 3DNL September 23

This autumn series of U_Lectures are hosted by our member UNIGIS Amsterdam in cooperation with several industry partners. Don't miss this opportunity and register now for the U_Lecture on Platform 3DNL with industry experts Rob van de Velde (Geonovum), Henk Scholten (Geodan/VU University Amsterdam) and Sanne Hettinga (VU University Amsterdam).

Date: Wednesday September23
Time: 4-5 pm (CEST)

U_Lecture 3DNL

Due to increasing complexity of spatial processes, decisions about the public space are becoming harder. Accurate and real-time 3D information is necessary to support effective and transparent decision making. Platform 3DNL is seeking to establish a national 3D Geo-Information Infrastructure in the Netherlands. Two initiators, Rob van de Velde (Geonovum, public sector) and Henk Scholten (Geodan, private sector), and PhD student Sanne Hettinga (VU Amsterdam) will reflect on their vision and work plan and explain why so many government agencies, companies and universities have committed their participation in the Platform. What are the challenges and opportunities in successfully implementing 3DNL and how will it strengthen the international position of the Netherlands.

Presenters

Rob van de Velde is Director of Geonovum and Board Member of the Open Geospatial Consortium. Geonovum is responsible in The Netherlands for making public sector geo-information widely accessible and develops and maintains the required standards. For the development and maintenance of a national Geo-Information Infrastructure, Geonovum connects policy and practice.

Henk Scholten is founder and CEO of Geodan, one of the largest European companies specialised in Geo-IT. He is also Full Professor in Spatial Informatics at the Department of Spatial Economics, at the VU University Amsterdam, Director of UNIGIS Amsterdam and co-founder of UNIGIS International.

Sanne Hettinga is a PhD student at the VU Amsterdam university, studying the role of 3D data in environmental modeling (the project 3D for Environmental Modelling at the Maps for Society programme).

UNIGIS Sub Saharan African Student offered lucrative bursary

Ms Marthie Schoeman, UNIGIS Sub Saharan Africa student has been awarded a coveted bursary by EE Publishers South Africa to attend this year’s Geomatics Indaba in South Africa, all expenses paid. 

EE Publishers have a particular focus on the electrical, electronics, measurement, automation, control, computer, information, geo-informatics and communication technology sectors of Southern Africa. UNIGIS wishes Marthie a wonderful trip to Ekurhuleni and we hope she learns a lot!