The 9th International Symposium on Digital Earth was successfully held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada from 5th to 9th of October 2015, under the theme of “Towards a One-World Vision for the Blue Planet”.
A day before this event, the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE), host organisation, held its Council meeting. In this assembly, the Council members congratulated Prof. Guo Huadong, former CODATA President and current Director-General of the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), for being elected the 3rd President of ISDE.
Chaired by the new President, the Council meeting made many significant outputs, including:
- Prof. Guo Huadong as the President of ISDE and Dr. David Coleman as the President of GSDI signed the Memorandum of Understanding in a joint ceremony to work towards cooperation for mutual benefits.
Sydney, Australia was given the honor to host the 10th International Symposium on Digital Earth in 2017.- Ms. Kristina Kehayova from Bulgaria was voted to be the winner of the ISDE video competition.
- The way forward for the Society was fully discussed.
Following the ISDE Council meeting, the International Symposium on Digital Earth took place in the World Trade and Convention Center of Halifax. About 300 delegates of scientists, engineers, technologists, and environmental managers from 28 countries around the world, including United States, Canada, Australia, Germany and China, attended the Symposium and shared their thoughts, researches, and practical applications relating to Digital Earth vision.
The theme of the Symposium was “Towards a One-World vision for the Blue Planet”. The invited keynote speakers included Prof. Michael Goodchild, Dr. Lynn Moorman, Dr. James Boxall, Prof. Guo Huadong, Dr. Dawn Wright, Ms. Rebecca Moore, Dr. David Green, Mr. Rear-Admiral John Newton, Dr. Doug Wallace, Prof. Rob Kitchin and Prof. Deren Li.
Other major attractions included the participation of Canadian Space Agency and NASA astronauts in plenary panel discussion, 20 poster papers, and a NASA Hyper-wall exhibition, etc.
In addition, the Education and Outreach Program was offered as a special event for school children to have access to activity stations for visualizing our world, and to attend astronaut panel and four public scientific talks to instigate interest in younger generation for the vision of Digital Earth.
In total, 155 high quality papers in 37 sessions were presented during the Symposium with topics ranging from Digital Earth Theory and Technology, Earth Observation, Applications to Science and Policy, Digital Earth and Citizen Well-Being, Digital Earth Education and Outreach.
Read more:
ISDE9 Full story