Happy New Year !

Locations and Times in 2012

Academician Prof. Ákos Detrekői passed away

Megdöbbentő hír érkezett: 74 éves korában elhunyt Detrekői Ákos akadémikus, geodéta, a BME volt rektora, akinek nagy szerepe volt a HUNAGI megalakulásában is. Az MTA hivatalos közleménye itt olvasható:http://mta.hu/mta_hirei/elhunyt-detrekoi-akos-geodeta-az-mta-rendes-tagja-131104/. Generációk egyetemi tanára volt, mindíg előre tekintő, nemrégen támogatója a Digitális Föld szimpózium remélt budapesti megrendezésének. Életpályája a Wikipédián.

Elhunyt Detrekői Ákos geodéta, az MTA rendes tagja

mta.hu

Életének 74. évében, 2012. december 18-án elhunyt Detrekői Ákos Széchenyi-díjas magyar geodéta, egyetemi tanár, a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia rendes tagja.

HUNAGI Board made important decisions

The second annual Presidential Board Meeting was held at the VÁTI premises yesterday. The Board made some important decisions. Announcement will come soon.

HUNAGI contributions to the GSDI/IGS Newsletter

By request of Roger Longhorn, Editor of SDI Mag and the GSDI/IGS Newsletter, HUNAGI compiled short reports on some recent global events participated including Cyberspace Conference 2012, ICSU 23rd CODATA Conference and GEO-IX Plenary Meeting. Here you are the unedited row draft text submitted to Roger Longhorn, Chair, Communication and Outreach Committee, GSDI Association:

'Cyberspace Conference, Budapest

The Cyberspace Conference started in London in 2011 was hosted by the Hungarian Government between 3-5 October this year with the slogan “With trust and security for freedom and prosperity”.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán with VIPs just before the Opening session

 The high profile event with 600 participants from 60 countries was opened by the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and attended by the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, Vice President of the European Commission and many ministers from all over the world.  The Budapest Conference was welcomed in a videobroadcasted message by US State Secretary  Hillary Clinton as well.  Among the  invited participants representative of the Hungarian GI Association HUNAGI was present. Gabor Remetey, member of GSDI Legal and Socioecon Committee made intervention in the discussion Social Benefits and Human Rights with the subject how the privacy will be ensured in an era, where the development and applications of new technologies in data and information gathering growths with unprecedented speed as it is anticipated 50 bn wireless mobile devices will be connected to the Internet in 2020. Acknowledged IoT (Internet of Things) experts of the panel including Prof. Wolfgang Kleinwaechter discussed the issue addressed. 

    According to the talks, concensus was found

• -       Internet especially mobile Internet is a major driver
• -       everybody is stakeholder in the Cyberspace
• -       broadband is a key for the society and economy
• -       there is a need for confidence and trust
• -       openess, transparency, responsibility and accountability are essential
• -       international cooperation and use of standards is vital
• -       dialogs should be continued
• -       call the next generation to be involved
• -       connectivity, innovation and communication are crutial
• -       ability to transform and flexibility is needed
• -       sharing skill and knowledge, best practices and lessons learned is important
• -       sharing digital content, open access and use of data
• -       crutial role of the government, industry, academia and NGOs
• -       balancing between security and freedom is a delicate task – they are not incompatible.

Further readings: 

• Conference website (including Chair’s Summary: http://www.cyberbudapest2012.hu/index
• OECD Internet Economy Outlook  2012: http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/launchofoecdinterneteconomyoutlook2012atbudapestconferenceoncyberspacethursday4october2012.htm

• World Bank 2012 Strategy for Information and Communication Technology: http://web.worldbank.org 

• HUNAGI photo album:  http://picasaweb.google.com/hunagialbums/CyberspaceConferenceBudapest 

     The next Cyberspace Conference will be in Seoul, South-Korea in 2013.

ICSU 23^rd CODATA Conference, Taipei

Hosted by the Academica Sinica Campus in Taipei, the 23^rd CODATA  Conference of the International Council of  Scientific Unions (ICSU) was opened by Prof. Yuan-Tsai Lee, President of ICSU and Academician Guo Huadong, President of CODATA (CEODE, Beijing China).  CODATA was established in 1966 by ICSU.

GSDI  SocioEcon Impact Com Co-chair Jeremy Shen (Taipei, Taiwan) and several Legal & SocioEcon Com (LSE) members took actively part on the international event. Prof. Anne Fitzgerald (QUT Law School, Brisbane, Australia) delivered a lecture on the use of social media to collect and disseminate emergency information highlighting the case study  of the Queensland Police Service in the theme disaster management and social media.

In a parallel session organised by the International Society of Digital Earth (ISDE) under the theme “ Digital Earth in Data Intensive Era” Gabor Remetey (HUNAGI, Budapest, Hungary) had a presentation entitled  “Shared and open data – European efforts and practice from an NGO perspective “. With Co-authors Katleen Janssen (KU Leuven, Belgium, Co Chair of GSDI LSE) and Catherina Bamps (EUROGI) the talk gave an overview from European data policies (INSPIRE, PSI, ODP) to projects such as LAPSI and LAPSI 2.0 making emphasis on relevant activities of GSDI as well. This ISDE Session had further speakers from University of Osnabrück, USGCRP, NASA HQ, NASA ARC, NSF-George Mason University in the subjects beyond the next generation Digital Earth, open data, Big Data, NEX, cloud computing. The Annual ICSU CODATA Award was given to Prof. Mike Goodchild this year.

GEO-IX Plenary Meeting, Foz Do Iguacu

Established in 2005, the Geneva–based Group on Earth Observation (hosted by WMO)  held its 9th Plenary Meeting first time in South America.  Supported by INPE, the Brazil Space Research Institution, The World Bank and the Brazil Ministry of Science and Technology, the event was chaired by Manuela Suarez of the European Commission. Other ExCom members from South Africa, China and the USA as well as the new Director-general of INPE Leonel Perondi gave welcome addresses. Under the Secretary leadership of Ms. Barbara J. Ryan and with the new membership applications recognised by the plenary (Ivory Coast, ICA,  The UN Convention to Combat Desertification UNCCD and the World Data System) GEO has 88 member countries + the European Commission and 67 participating organisations. Highlights of the presentations include

-       1^st Assessment of Progress against the GEOSS 2015 Strategic Targets with special emphasis on the nine societal benefit areas

-       Thematic evaluation and providing conclusions, findings and recommendations in the context

o   large cooperative initiatives, which are major accomplishments for GEOrecognized by G20 and UN,

o   gaps and gap analysis,

o   ecosystems,

o   user engagement,

o   challenges:resources and participation

GEOSS Common Infrastructure (EC, Italy, Japan, USA, ESA, IEEE, OGC)

-       Access to GEOSS Resources (430 components: datasets, systems and portals registered)

-       GEOSS Data CORE (Data Sharing Working Group) So far over 14700 Data-CORE resources are visible and accessible via GEO Portal

-       Rapid and Open Disasters Information (Germany, Italy, Japan, Turkey, USA, CEOS, EPOS, ESA)

-       Global and Local Urban Footprints (China, EC, Germany, Greece, Italy, Pakistan, USA) 35 year evolution of 26 mega-cities, global night-time lights for 2012, urban hat island patterns, over 3700 cities mapped using ASTER with 15 m resolution

-       New Energy Tools and Services (Austria, EC, France, Germny, Italy, Netherlands, Pakistan, USA, CEOS, IRENA)

-       Tools for Health Decision-Making (Brazil, EC, France, India, Germany, USA, ACMAD, WHO, WMO) mobile phone Apps, high-risk zones, etc.

Additional topics covered include Bridging Ocean Communities,  More Water Information, Cold Region Monitoring,  Extreme Wether Early Warning,  Climate Change Detection and Adaptation, Carbon Assessments and Budgets,  Global Forest Information System,  Advanced Land-cover Products,  Crop Information for Decision-Making, GEO Biodiversity Observation Network, More Capacity to Use GEOSS,  GEONETCast Expanded, Meeting User Needs, Engaging Users

-       Universal Access to the international Charter “space and major disasters”

-       Oceans and Society: the Blue Planet (an integrating Oceans Task of GEO)

-       AfriGEOSS: stablishing Africa’s Participation and Contribution to the Global Vision

Discussion points addressed include wether GEO should continue post 2015 and why. Strategic Direction options, Societal Benefit Area options, Governance options.

-       GEOGLAM Initiative taking into account the G20 Agriculture priorities

-       The GEO-wiki Project presented by IIASA

-       GEO Post-2015 Working Group findings (interim report)

The exhibition was dominated by the booths of CEOS, China, USA: GEOSS in the Americas, Japan (JAMSTEC), South Africa (SAGEO), IEEE, and by Russian, Austrian, German institutions, international  and EU projects such as GEONETCast, COBWEB and others. The European Commission organised intensive side Events with introductions of GEOSS-related actions, projects and international achievements

GSDI Association made intervention in the plenary discusion of the AfriGEOSS initiative, announcing the venue, date, co-organisers and objectives of the 14^th GSDI World Conference held in Addis Abbaba next November.  On the second day among 12 other participating organisations such as WMO, IEEE, CEOS, GSDI delegate Gabor Remetey presented a GSDI statement highlighting the mutual benefits for the Earth Observation and the geospatial data infratructure communities. IGS, GIKNet, involvement in GEOSS task force, GEO participating organisations’ actions in case of CEOS WGISS, ICSU CODATA and ISDE activities only a few to mention.

The GEO X will be hosted by the Swiss Government.

Further photos will be uploaded to

http://picasaweb.google.com/hunagialbums

GSDI represented at the GEO-IX

The Plenary Meeting starts tomorrow. Two Hungarians are in Foz Do Iguacu, venue of the ninth GEO Plenary Prof.Dr. Zoltán Dunkel, President of the Hungarian Meteorological Service an the Secretary-generl of HUNAGI appointed as head of the GSDI Delegation. 
The President of the WMO, and many friends as Simonetta Cheli of ESA, Kathy Fontaine of NASA and John Richards, President of the International Society of Digital Earth arrived yesterday, participating some pre-plenary, by invitation only programs such as ABCC (Australia-Canada-China-Brazil) Project.
For details please visit the HUNAGI Napló

HUNAGI contribution to the EUROGI EMM & AGM

HUNAGI at the ICSU CODATA Conference

The 32nd CODATA Conference was held between 27-31 October in Taipei, hosted by the Academica Sinica.
HUNAGI was invited by ISDE Secretary General Academician Guo Huadong, President of CODATA in the session "Digital Earth in a data intensive era" together with a German and three American speakers. The subject of the Hungarian talk was "Shared and Open Data in Europe from an NGO perspective". 
For information please visit the HUNAGI Newsblog and use the in-built translation service provided by Google.
Please click the link: hunagi8.blogspot.com

GDi Forum 2012 17th Esri Hungary User Conference in Boscolo Center

For details please visit HUNAGI Napló

HUNAGI contributions to the GSDI Legal and SocioEcon Committee Report

Submitted to Roger Longhorn, Chair, Communication and Outreach Committee, GSDI Association:
Actions in September

1.

Between 2-4 September 2012 at the 4th Digital Earth Summit, GSDI Legal and Socioeconomic Committee member Gabor Remetey of HUNAGI presented a paper on the EU Project Legal Aspects of Public Sector Information of project manager Cristiana Sappa (Torino Law School)  and Patrick Hogan (NASA Ames Research Center). The Conference was held in Wellington was hosted and supported by the Land Information New Zealand and attracted over 400 people from over 20 countries. Major keynotes of the event on video: http://www.youtube.com/user/4DigitalEarth12/feed?filter=2. Just before the conference the Executive Committee of the International Society of Digital Earth held a meeting where the relationship with GSDI Association was also discussed.

2.
The Summer School related to the open source NASA World Wind Europa Challenge (WWEC) held in Como between 19-21 September was attended Gabor Remetey, one of the invited member of the WW International Scientific Committee who delivered a presentation on the role and potentials of a INSPIRE Spatial Data Interest Community (SDIC) in the WWEC in the  Digital Earth Vision 2020 context. The goal of the initiative is to mobilize European University students to participate an Annual WW Europa Challenge by designing and developing apps using the open source WW developing kit. JRC IES Digital Earth and Reference Data Unit shown also interest in the initiative. The Summer School was hosted by Professor Maria A. Brovelli of the Como Campus of the Politecnico di Milano. The homepage of the WWEC will be established by PoliMi in the next days. The event was participated by nearly 50 professors, lecturers as well as graduate and PhD students. Besides NASA ARC, UCL, University Münster students from numerous European universities were present. 

3.

After Budapest and Tokyo hosted by HUNAGI and Jaxa respectively, the autumn meeting of the CEOS Working Group on Information Systems and Services was held in Hyderabad hosted by ISRO. GSDI liaison Gabor Remetey delivered his liaison report to the plenary from Budapest using teleconference facility. CEOS WGISS  (http://wgiss.ceos.org) is the satellite arm of GEO and its  action plan discussed in Hyderabad is mostly related to some specific GEO task implementation.

4. 

At the 10 th annual Light-Space-Imagery Conference organised by GeoIQ Ltd and hosted by OGC member Károly Róbert College (KRF) in Gyöngyös, Hungary, HUNAGI representative provided information for the audience (about 90 experts in GIS, RS and photogrammetry) on 28th September. GSDI's ISG, GIKNet and the Regional Newsletters were highlighted. Themes of the conference include:

• Remote Sensing projects of KRF
• Recent remote sensing activities of FÖMI
• ENVI5, the next generation of image analysis
• The advantages of local tasking with WorldWiew sat
• RS+GIS application in control of agri subsidies
• TerraSAR technology and solutions
• DTM and its applicabilities
• Hungary (FÖMI) in the GEO Land program
• On the Curiosity mission
• Subpixel vegetation assessment using hyperspectral space imagery
• Multidisciplinary UAV and UAS sensing applications

Actions in October

HUNAGI at the Cyberspace Conference held in Budapest

For details please visit HUNAGI Newsblog and use the translator tool embedded.

Cyberspace Conference, Budapest

Snapshots taken during the event.

HUNAGI announcements at the 10th Light-Space-Imagery Conference held in Gyöngyös

Imagery-Map Conference
September 27-28, Gyöngyös, Hungary

Themes: Remote Sensing, Image Processing, Photogrammetry and GIS

Organised by GeoIQ Ltd

Hosted by KRF Károly Róbert College, Gyöngyös, Member of OGC and HUNAGI

Presented topics include:

Remote Sensing projects of KRF

Recent remote sensing activities of FÖMI

ENVI5, the next generation of image analysis

The advantages of local tasking with WorldWiew sat

RS+GIS application in control of agri subsidies

TerraSAR technology and solutions

DTM and applicabilities

Hungary (FÖMI) in the GEO Land program

On the Curiosity mission

Subpixel vegetation assessment using hyperspectral space imagery

Multidisciplinary UAV and UAS sensing applications

Fény-Tér-Kép 2012

GSDI Liaison report presented using GotoMeeting at the 34th WGISS Plenary

WWEC Summer School completed successfully

HUNAGI at the 4th Digital Earth Summit

NASA World Wind Europa Challenge Summer School

This opportunity is intended to professors and skilled experts in opensource use and related application development in university/college environment or decision makers/desk officers at governmental agencies dealing with information strategy, research and innovation. You are encouraged to disseminate this call. 

Interested people should read the flyer and the referred website carefully, and act asap.The deadline for the registration is September 1.

World Wind Europa Challenge Summer School

Como, 19-21 September, 2012

Flyer:

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/wwec/WorldWindEuropaChallenge.pdf

Website of the host of the event

http://www.polinternational.polimi.it/what/programmes/summer-schools/world-wind-europa-challenge-como-19-21-

september-2012/

HUNAGI's Newsblog in Hungarian is frequently visited from abroad as well.

Visualisation: http://www.revolvermaps.com/

HUNAGI Napló (HUNAGI's newsblog in Hungarian) has a wide reader community from all over the world. The secret is relatively simple: majority of the topics have international relevance and there is a translation service provided by Google to facilitate the understanding of the posted information (and the associated columns). The Visitors' Map shows the geographically distribution of the page visitors. The last entries are related to the successful MSL landing on the Mars and HUNAGI's actions related to the LAPSI Project, NASA World Wind opensorce kit related Europa Challenge on apps development, as well as the coming missions at the Digital Earth Summit and ICSU CODATA conference.

NASA World Wind Europa Challenge 2012

The illustrated flyer with the most important issues can be downloaded from here: WWEC2012Flyer
The merit of the initiative as summarized by Patrick Hogan World Wind project manager (NASA Ames Research Center, Moffet Fields, CA):

“The Europa Challenge is a test of the European university community’s capacity to deliver sustainable solutions serving the needs of the European community.  Each university and their most capable professors and students, are invited to showcase their talents measured against the needs of the European community. Starting now and every year going forward, the Europa Challenge will seek the best information technology solutions the European universities can come up with based on NASA World Wind, http://goworldwind.org/.”

PSI and re-use: you can follow the LAPSI project meeting by videostreaming and twitter

From our daily mail. Dr. Cristiana Sappa circulated the news below.

"The final LAPSI-EVPSI meeting is upcoming. ...
The meeting will be streamed on this channel: http://www.unito.it/media/?channel=1 . The channel will be embedded in the LAPSI website. Therefore it will be possible to follow the streaming also here: http://www.lapsi-project.eu/streaming

You can follow the meeting on twitter: #openpsi
The meeting will be simultaneously translated from English/Italian to Italian/English....

You can find the final program here: http://www.lapsi-project.eu/meeting9jul and any relevant information linked here http://www.lapsi-project.eu/ "