HUNAGI's international activities during the past 12 months

The following text was compiled for use by the Editor of the National Report of the Hungarian Surveying, Mapping and Cadastral Agencies to be prepared for the next General Assembly of EuroGeographics.

HUNAGI

The Hungarian Association for Geo-information (HUNAGI) is a non-for-profit umbrella organisation serving the spatial data interest community in Hungary since 1994. Its major objectives are to encourage and facilitate the availability, accessiblity and useability of geographic information according to the INSPIRE legislation framework. To achieve these goals, using its European and global relations emphasis is given to awareness raising, dissemination of knowledge and best practices in association with EU directives INSPIRE and PSI also enabling innovative solutions and good governance in eAdministration. Having 101 member institutions and organisations, HUNAGI’s interdisciplinary community includes governmental agencies, NGOs, academia and private sector. The Hungarian Mapping and Cadastral Agencies are well represented in HUNAGI since the beginning. Some recent activities are summarized as follow:

• Based on the previous consultancy services provided for the Ministry of Communication and Informatics (theme: InfoSo & SDI Strategy) and the Ministry of Economics and Transport (PSI), the governmental links emerged since 2008 significantly, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (INSPIRE), Ministry of Environment and Water (GMES, INSPIRE and related Economic Impact Study) , Hungarian Space Research Office of the National Office for Research and Technology and very recently interest was raised on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Consultancy is underway with the State Audit Office, whereas the exploitation of international best practices in use of GI will play important role.
• HUNAGI has emerging links with the Geoscience Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Presidents of the UNESCO National Committee and the President of HAS invited HUNAGI to the IYPE National Committee devoted to the framework on the International Year of Planet Earth (2007-2009). HUNAGI joined the VAHAVA Network lead by HAS on the Climate Change-related actions, where geospatial information plays key role.
• HUNAGI was invited to attend the domestic Intergraph User Seminar, and provided keynote to the ESRI Hungary User Conference, both event participated by international staff members of the companies.
• As far as the links and joint actions with non-member NGOs are concerned, partnership with ITS Hungary (navigation), MLBKT (Hung. Society of Logistics, Purchase and Inventory), MAGISZ (Hungarian Society of Content Industry), as well as he SZVT (Hung. Society of Management and Organisation) have to be mentioned. Dissemination of innovative solutions, the INSPIRE and PSI are the issues addressed.
• HUNAGI contributes news to domestic and international media regularly (Geodézia és Kartográfia, terinformatika-online, PSI Platform, and has seat in the Editorial Advisory Board of GIM Magazine (NL), the Int.J. of Spatial Data Research (EU) and regularly invited to the Int.J.of Digital Earth (CN)
• Earth Observation is a field where HUNAGI plays disseminator and facilitator role, promoting activities and actions such as ESA PECS, EUMETSAT Info Day. HUNAGI was invited to the Space Research Council a board supporting the activities for the Hungarian Space Research Office.
• By the invitation of the European Umbrella Organization of Geographical Information (EUROGI) the Hungarian Association for Geo-information (HUNAGI) joined the consortium of the eSDI-Net+ project with the aim to apply internationally elaborated evaluation methodologies in spatial data infrastructure services according the principles of the EU INSPIRE directive. Six domestic best practice candidates were selected including KOMVIR, MÉTA, PIR, TeIR, VINGIS and ZEG-INVATER.
• HUNAGI or staff is involved in several additional EU projets such as Humboldt(INSPIRE, reviewing) , Cascadoss (INSPIRE, GEMS oriented opensource), EURADIN (European Address Infrastructure and European Address Forum), Thematic ePSIplus, PSI Platform and LAPSI project proposal (all related to PSI directive with special emphasis on GI supported by the EU eContentplus program).
• As well as the international links and activities of HUNAGI during the past year is concerned, four entities should be mentioned: EUROGI, GSDI, ISDE and UNGIWG.

EUROGI

HUNAGI joined EUROGI, the European Umbrella Organisation of Geographical Information in 1996. Since 1998 it has seat in the Executive Committee. Some of the major actions since August 2008 are as follow:

• Organising a eSDI-NET+ National Workshop in Budapest
• Participating eSDI-NET+ consortium meeting at La Sapienza University in Rome Participating EUROGI ExCom Meeting in Rome
• Delegation incl. Hungarian member of the INSPRE Committee and FÖMI INSPIRE expert at the EUROGI Extended Member Meeting (EMM) in City Hall, Gothenborg
• Participating EUROGI ExCom Meeting hosted by IGN Spain in Madrid
• Participating at the EUROGI Members‘ Day and Annual General Meeting in Brussels, participated by DGs incuding JRC, InfSo and Envi.
• Organisation of EURADIN National Workshop in conjuction with FÖMI and Geox Ltd) in Budapest, hosted by FÖMI
• Next: EUROGI ExCom Meeting in Budapest hosted by HUNAGI

GSDI

HUNAGI joined GSDI, the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Initiative and later Association in 1996. Since 1998 it has seat in the Advisory Committee, later Executive Committee. The mandate expired in 2009. Some of the major actions since August 2008 are as follow:

• Representing GSDI Association at the CEOS WGISS-26 Meeting in Boulder hosted by NOAA, participating the WGISS-GEO Intercom Meeting hosted by UCAR
• (WGISS is for Working Group on Information Systems and Services of the Committee on Earth Observation)
• Member of the GSDI Delegation attending the GEO-V Plenary in Bucharest
• Representing GSDI Association at the CEOS WGISS-27 Meeting in Toulouse hosted by CNES
• Promoting and participating the GSDI-11 Conference (a joint event with the 3rd INSPIRE Conference and the Closing Event of the Dutch SDI Program „Space for GI“)
• HUNAGI received Co-chairmanship in the GSDI Legal and Socio-Economics Group.

ISDE

HUNAGI joined ISDE, the International Digital Earth Initiative – later International Society of Digital Earth in 2003. Since 2008 it has seat in the Executive Committee. Some of the major actions since August 2008 are as follow:

• Participating the 2nd Digital Earth Summit organised by the German Society of Geoinformation and hosted by the German Geoscience Center in Potsdam.
• First participation of the Executive Committee of the International Society of Digital Earth chaired by Gua Huadong Director General of CEODE, Beijing
• Meeting of President and Secretary General of the HAS Geoscience Committee, Director General of FÖMI and Secretary General of HUNAGI to discuss about the possible alternatives on the involvement of the Hungarian Geoscience community into the digital Earth-related international actions (encouraged by HSO, the same topic was already exploited for the Hungarian Space Research council too).
• Participating the next ISDE-6 Symposium and ExCom Meetings in Beijing with planned promotion of Hungarian achievements to be published in the Science Citation Index registered Int. Journal of Digital Earth.

UNGIWG

By invitation HUNAGI joined UNSDI, the United Nations Spatial Data Infrastructure Initiative after The Netherlands and the Czech Republic as third country coordinator in 2006. This initiative was ochestrated and supervised by the UN geographic Working Group (UNGIWG). Since 2007, HUNAGI is invited to take part the UNGIWG Meetings, which is a forum of delegated experts from about 30 UN agencies and some NGOs.

Some of the major actions since August 2008 are as follow:

• UNGIWG-9 Plenary Meeting hosted by OOSA in the UN-City of Vienna
• HUNAGI- UN SPIDER Bonn Office consultations at WGISS-27 and at GSDI-11
• HUNAGI proposal on behalf GSDI Association to extend GSDI SDI Cookbook Wiki with a chapter formulating requirements (data availability, accessibility, useability, - logistical, legal, financial issues, capacity building, communication) and describing best practices in disaster response applications. The issue might be revisited and addressed by the WGISS-28 in Pretoria.
• HUNAGI promotes SPIDER actions. Next: Bonn Conference on Disaster Management using satellite based technologies and UNGIWG-10 Anniversary Plenary.

For further informationon the listed activities of HUNAGI, detailed news are available in English at the HUNAGI/UNSDI newsblog: http://unsdihu.blogspot.com For actions related to any abbrevation above, please use the search blog function.