UIA Academic Excellence Prize 2009 – Award Ceremony

Christof Amelunxen (UNIGIS Salzburg), winner of the Academic Excellence Prize 2009 presented his top quality MSc thesis at the GI_Forum 2010 in Salzburg. His thesis titled: “An approach to Geocoding Based on Volunteered Spatial Data” was unanimously considered by the Review Board as the best UNIGIS thesis worldwide submitted in the academic year 2008/9.

UNIGIS professional – Workshop in Salzburg

On Friday 11th and Saturday 12th a new intake of UNIGIS professional students started into a demanding but interesting year of learning applied GIS by getting together in Salzburg for an introductory workshop. Participants of the German language version of the UNIGIS professional certificate course typically originate from Austria, Germany or Switzerland, although Austria was a bit underrepresented with just one student in this group. The team from Salzburg wishes a good start and looks forward to interesting discussions on GIS-topics!

UNIGIS Netherlands Conference

UNIGIS Amsterdam is again inviting to the annual UNIGIS conference, June 14-18. The conference program includes multiple workshops on topics ranging from Spatial Analysis: a case study on malaria to Analysing & explaining land use change and will conclude with an Alumni Day on June 18 themed 'Risk Assessment & GIS'.

The opening lecture will be given by Prof Henk Scholten, the UNIGIS Amsterdam program director. While time has been set aside to watch soccer World Championship matches, numerous presentations and activities will introduce participants to the hot topics in today's world of GIS.

Wishing everybody a successful conference and reunion!

UNIGIS in Saudi Arabia

In the presence of the Saudi Minister of Higher Education, His Excellency Dr. Khalid Al Anqari on April 28, 2010 an academic cooperation agreement was signed between King Abdulaziz University of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and the University of Salzburg Center for Geoinformatics (Z_GIS).
The signatories Prof Osama S. Tayyeb, President of King Abdulaziz University (KAU) and Prof Josef Strobl, Chair of UNIGIS International and Director of Z_GIS are aiming at establishing a dual degree program between these two universities. With the intent of starting a joint postgraduate distance learning program later in 2010, the globally recognized UNIGIS qualifications will be made available to students from Saudi Arabia.
The Department of Geography, KAU will serve as a UNIGIS study centre and thus extend the reach of UNIGIS into the Arab Peninsula. Prof Al-Doaan, chair of the KAU Geography Department has been providing leadership to this initiative throughout the last year, and Dr. Mohamed Amri will be serving as program coordinator. Further program details will be available through www.unigis.net/jeddah!

UNIGIS with ESRI at Latin America GIS Edu Conference

UNIGIS is cooperating with ESRI in organising and contributing to the Latin America GIS Education Conference hosted by SIGSA, announced for September 21, 2010 in Mexico City: http://www.sigsa.info/lauc2010/edu.html

The conference flyer offers additional details for this event which will bring together the Latin America GIS educators' community sharing their experiences, discussing curricula, educational pedagogies and methods, and models for GIS labs.