Map Middle East 2006 Report
26 - 29 March 2006
World Trade Centre, Dubai
The Second Annual Middle East Conference on Geospatial Information, Technologies and Applications under the theme of “Geospatial for All – All for Geospatial” was held at the Dubai World Trade Centre from March 26 to 29. Organized by GIS Development and Dubai Municipality the event witnessed participation from more than 1,000 delegates from around 41 countries, strengthening its position as the regional forum for the Middle East geospatial community.

Opening Ceremony
The conference was inaugurated by H.E. Eng. Hussain Nasser Lootah, Acting Director General of Dubai Municipality on 26th March. He hoped that the conference would provide a stage for the professionals in private sector, government officials, researchers and academicians in the Middle East region to learn about the new developments in the field of GIS, GPS, Remote Sensing and Aerial Photography. The inaugural session of the conference was also addressed by Dr. M P Narayanan, President, GIS Development; Mr. Suresh Prabhu, Member of Parliament, India; and Prof. Milan Konecny, President of International Cartographic Association.

PLENARY SESSION
There were interesting speeches by eminent geospatial leaders during the two Plenary Sessions. Prof. David Rhind, Vice Chancellor, City University, London touched upon the topic of ‘GIS and the Safety of Society’. The series of natural and man-made disasters in 2005 and 2006 have highlighted the role that GIS and its users can play in safeguarding society, said Prof. Rhind. He added that coping with disasters - natural or man-made - is an area where GIS can potentially make a major contribution.

Ian Dowman, President, ISPRS in his presentation on 'Earth Observation and Society: Opportunities and challenges for all' emphasized that there is an enormous potential for earth observation data to serve society, but there are still many problems in this field. Dowman's presentation dealt with the current technical and political developments and the challenges that the geospatial community must meet to enhance the value of Earth observations data.
v Preetha Pulusani, President (Security, Government and Infrastructure Division), Intergraph Corporation, USA spoke on the topic of ‘Technology for a More Secure World’. She said security applications used to prevent crises today are much more than traditional GIS and provide a more comprehensive, information-rich geospatial environment that are bringing together emergency and incident management with sensor, alarm and video surveillance technologies to provide a complete COP.

In his speech on "Land Management and Cadastre" Em. Prof. Gottfried Konecny from the Institute of Photogrammetry & Geoinformation, University of Hannover, Germany said that in many parts of the world, land - which is a limited, non-renewable resource - is over utilized and degraded by urbanization and industrialization. "The prerequisite to land management is to create legal security for occupation of land, and to create investment opportunities under legal rights. This is an economic incentive permitting urban and rural land reforms, as endorsed by the UNCED process," he said.

Styli Camateros, Vice President (Geospatial) Bentley Systems talked on Advancing Geospatial Technology in Infrastructure. He said infrastructure is the cornerstone of economic development and because of its long lifecycle is particularly difficult to manage. "Current use of Geospatial technology in Infrastructure falls short in critical areas such as precision, 3D, integration of planning, analysis, design, and facilities management, and integration of data required for lifecycle management of the asset but that is not conducive to being stored in a database," said Camateros.

KEYNOTE SESSION
There were three separate Keynote Session from March 27 to 28. The first keynote session was on the topic of ‘Satellite Photogrammetry: Emerging Trends’. During this session Prof. Christian Heipke, Institute of Photogrammetry & Geoinformation, University of Hannover, Germany spoke on Emerging GIS and mapping trends. Mr. Rich Turner, Senior Product Manager, ESRI talked on GIS - Trends driving GIS evolution in our Rapidly Changing world; Dr. C. V. S. Prakash, Director, Antrix Corporation talked on Satellite Photogrammetry: Emerging Trends and Mr. John W Allan Director (Sales & Marketing), BAE Systems talked on Making 3D geospatial databases a reality.

In the second keynote session, on the topic of ‘Positioning and Locational Intelligence’ Mr. George Moon, Chief Technology Officer, MapInfo Corporation spoke about Technology Trends in Positioning & Locational Intelligence; Dr. Vanessa Lawrence, DG & Chief Executive, Ordnance Survey, UK talked on 'Underpinning the Nation with Geographic information for informed decision making'; Mr. Michael Jones, Chief Technology Officer, Google Earth talked on The Expanding Role of Geospatial Information and Mr. Ron Lake, President & CEO, Galdos Inc, USA talked on Spatial Data Infrastructures and the future of GIS.

During the third keynote, which was on ‘GIS in the Middle East’ Eng. Muhammad Alrajhi, Director General of Surveying and mapping, MOMRA, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, spoke about Geo Information in Saudi Arabia; Brig. Khalifa Al Romaithi, Director, Military Survey Department, UAE talked on Abu Dhabi Emirate Geoportal (GeoADE); Eng. Khalil Almaharmeh, Royal Jordanian Geographic Center, Jordan talked on Geo Spatial And GIS Data In RJGC – Jordan.

SPECIAL TRACKS
Apart from the above there were Special Tracks on the topics of Governance and Land Administration, National Security, Infrastructure. These included Special Track Keynotes on the before mentioned subjects.

WORKSHOPS
There were two workshops on “GIS Project Management” and “GIS Ethics and Laws”. The first workshop was run by Dr. A R Dasgupta, Distinguished Professor from BISAG, India and the second workshop was run by Mr. Roger Longhorn, Director, Info-Dynamics Research, and UK.

PAPER PRESENTATIONS
Altogether 215 papers have been received by the Map Middle East 2006 Technical Committee. Map Middle East 2006 had 59 paper presentations spread across the many Technical Sessions and Special Tracks and more than 50 poster presentations.

STUDENTS FORUM
Also as part of the Map Middle East 2006, the First GIS Students Forum was organized by Dubai Municipality in cooperation with the Ministry of Education in which 60 students from 12 schools in the UAE participated, in addition to presentations by international experts in the field. Eng. Hussain Nasser Lootah, Acting Director General of Dubai Municipality, who was present during the presentations, awarded trophies to the winning students in the Map Drawing Competition, held as part of the Forum. He also inaugurated the Map Gallery, which showcased the maps drawn by students on their emirates and the UAE.

In the first presentation about Google Earth, Michael Jones, Chief Technology Officer, Google Earth gave students a brief idea about the different advantages of Google Earth programme. In the second presentation on the Advantages of Digital Cameras in GIS, Gottfried Konecny, Professor in Geoinformation at the University of Hanover, Germany, talked about the different digital cameras used for aerial mapping. In the third presentation, Major Pilot Ali Al Shehhi of Space Reconnaissance Centre, UAE talked about the "Day to day use of satellite imagery.

GALA DINNER
A gala dinner was organized at the Dubai Municipality Officers’ Club on 28th March.

EXHIBITION
The Exhibition was inaugurated by H.E. Eng. Hussain Nasser Lootah, Acting Director General of Dubai Municipality. About 51 Exhibitors participated in the exhibition from the government and the industry. The exhibition was a great success, with Military Survey UAE, Intergraph and Dubai Municipality sharing the top honors for the best exhibitors.

CLOSING DAY
The Map Middle East 2006 conference concluded on 29th of March with a call to build educational infrastructure in geospatial technology and to integrate geospatial technology with other engineering streams.

MAP MIDDLE EAST 2006 AWARDS
Three papers were selected by the Technical Coordination Committee as best papers of the conference. The winning papers included "Local Urban Observatory at Sin El Fil Municipality, Lebanon" by Mounia Bedran Seba, Victoria Zwein, Khatib & Alami, CEC, Lebanon, "Tracking Shipping Containers with a Geospatial Information System for National Security," by Helmut Kraenzle, Professor in Geography, UAE University and "Progress towards the implementation and development of Tide-Met stations in the Emirate of Dubai," by a team of Dubai Municipality officials that included Yousuf AbdulRahman Al Marzouqui, Mehran Samdholla Ghassemi, Satheesh Gopi Neelakandan, and Amira Ahmed Al Zarouni. The Military Survey Department UAE, Intergraph and Dubai Municipality shared the top honours for the best exhibitors.

Dhawal Kumar