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FIG Working Week 2005 and GSDI-8 Conference in Cairo, Egypt
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Prof. Holger Magel, President of
FIG, Dr. Alan Stevens, Secretary General of GSDI (Global Spatial
Data Infrastructure) and Markku Villikka, Director, FIG Office
visited Cairo February 20-26, 2004 to visit the venue of the FIG Working
Week 2005. It will be the first time when FIG is organising a Working
Week together with another bigger international association. The Working
Week 2005 will be organised together with the 8th International
Conference of GSDI at the Intercontinental Semiramis Hotel in the city
centre of Cairo April 16-21, 2005. The organisers of the conference the Egyptian Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ECSM) and the Egyptian General Survey Authority (ESA) together with FIG and GSDI are convinced that the conference in Cairo will be one of the biggest FIG Working Week ever. When also local meetings like the national GIS conference will be linked to the conference it can be expected that more than 800 participants will attend the conference. Especially the commercial exhibition will be biggest ever in the history of FIG Working Weeks. During the visit to Cairo the delegation had several meetings with the local organising committee, chaired by Prof. Dr. Ahmed Elsheikh, Chair and Chairman of ECSM and Gen. Eng. Hisham Nasr, Vice Chair and Chairman of ESA. In these meetings the theme of the conference was confirmed to "From Pharaohs to Geoinformatics" covering the history of Egypt in surveying but at the same time referring to the role of geoinformatics in today's world. The organising committee has been establishedby the Prime Minister of Egypt under the Ministry of the Water Resources & Irrigation. After GSDI conference was integrated to the programme also the Ministry Communication and Information and Technology is highly interested to contributed. During a courtesy visit to HE Dr. Ahmed Nazif, Minister of Communication and Information and Technology (MCIT) the co-operation models were discussed. In addition the themes of the conference were discussed in detail so that they now cover the expectations of local participants, FIG commissions and GSDI. The updated website with call for papers will be available by the end of March at www.fig.net/figtree/cairo. The conference will be held at the Intercontinental Semiramis Hotel which is located on the river Nile within walking distance to the Egyptian Museum, shopping areas and other tourist attractions. It offers excellent meeting facilities and is reasonable priced. This offers good opportunity for conference "spirit" when most delegates can stay at the main venue. Conference fee will be reasonable because it includes lunches and coffees. The draft technical programme includes almost 40 technical sessions - to satisfy both cross-professional topics and specific topics of commission interests. The joint conference will allow high-profile international and regional speakers to the plenary sessions. As mentioned the professional and commercial exhibition is expected to be a reason to visit FIG/GSDI 2005 on itself. But you cannot visit Egypt and Cairo without seeing the history of this homeland of surveying. The social programme includes city sightseeing and visit to the pyramids in Giza and the social events will bring you to the river Nile and the cultural secrets of Cairo. The technical tour include the smart village and professionally interesting places in Cairo and close by. Post conference tour can be made e.g. to Luxor or Sharm El Sheik. More about the conference, call for papers etc. is available on the conference web site: www.fig.net/figtree/cairo by the end of March.
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