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Back to What? When the theme of the conference was conceptualized some time back, it was tough to find one single focal area that can truly give meaning to the word ‘basics’. Every person (passionate and involved) in GIS and related domains we had talked to, give a variant shade of the understanding of ‘basics’, especially when we understand it as ‘Back to Basics’. The opening day of Map India 2005 proved no different…
The first day of Map India 2005 opened with a record crowd in the history of Map India. Once again, the event reinstated the significance and role of the Map India platform in India and its surrounds to fuse the needy with the providers. GIS Development brings you the key points of Day 1 of Map India 2005 as it unfolds in Taj Palace, New Delhi. Map India 2005 is the 8th Annual Conference of GIS, GPS, Remote Sensing, Aerial Photography, Surveying and Mapping. It was organised this year, in collaboration with the Indian Society of Geomatics (ISG) whereby the Annual Convention of ISG, Geomatics 2005 was held in conjugation with Map India. Inauguration Map India 2005 had some interesting developments. The participation of students and government sector soared above expectations. Almost all departments of the Centre that are related to spatial data generation and use represented themselves. A large delegation of GPS technology companies was another encouraging observation. Academic sector had an enriched attendance. The exhibition was distributed in 4 different halls and the conference was running parallel in 5 halls. The inauguration started sharp at 10 am in the Main Hall of Taj. The two-hour inauguration had some very crucial speakers that elaborated on various challenges and prospects of the industry. “The Tsunami spoke a lot.. Did we hear?” Dr M P Narayanan, President, CSDMS, welcomed the participants in the Inaugural session briefly and set the tone for the three-day conference with over 1300 visitors. He expressed his condolence for the ones effected in the Tsunami and observed silence for a minute with the audience. He then drew an interesting corollary between the recent Tsunami, the NSDI initiative of India and the geospatial sector of India. He reminded us that NSDI is perhaps a necessity as its existence could have averted the vast losses of the disaster. Hence the need and role of initiatives like NSDI are very critical not only for the geospatial industry but also for the nation’s safety and preparedness. He also mentioned about the synergy between ISG and Map India and cited that education is the basic tenet to the industry’s growth and proliferation. “Generation of accurate, up-to-date, timely and need oriented data is the key” Dr P Nag, Surveyor General of India, Government of India spoke next giving his short and indepth introductory remarks. He mentioned his support for every cause of the mapping industry and briefly touched upon the importance of generating spatial data with care. He talked about the changes and development that are underway in the Survey of India and emphasized the need for being customer focused. “Let us aim for the impossible” Ms Lucie Edwards, High Commissioner of Canada addressed the gathering with her encouraging words for India and spoke with confidence on the role of geospatial sciences for its development. She talked of Canada’s history of utilizing GIS and related tools in managing natural resources of the country. She mentioned that the very basic of development is having the concern for environment and natural resources intact and seeing to it with vigour that every avenues of preserving and monitoring nature should not be left untrodden. “Connectivity is the name of the game” R S Pawar, Chairman, NIIT India spoke next. In his articulate keynote address he mentioned a number of factors that the geospatial sector need to keep a tab of for the future. He gave some innovative example of how science has contributed to easing human lives through out generations and also how science has helped us grow for the better. In perspective of the trends of the IT sector in India he mentioned that ‘connectivity’ is a phenomenon that has gripped the world like never before. Mankind is seeking to be connected through mobile telephony, Internet, networked systems, GPS, etc. He mentioned that for the future, GIS will the central force behind ‘informatics’. GIS is all about connectivity of multiple players of any situation with multiple layers of data. And it is this potential of GIS that shall make it a strong force to reckon with in the coming days of IT enabled services. “Mapping shows that way for all… Even the GIS-illiterate” Ms Sheila Dikshit, the Chief Minister of Delhi, graced the occasion with her short presence and inaugural address. She spoke on the growth of Map India over the year and recalled her last visit 6 years ago. She congratulated the organizers for the dedicated work over the years. She emphasized that the government is never totally quipped for its visions. To realize the dreams and ambitions, the government needs the support and expertise of the industry and researchers and called upon all to help the city develop and grow. Ravi Gupta, Director, CSDMS closed the Inaugural session with a vote of thanks to every delegate, speaker, exhibitor and well wisher of the event. Special Address Tad Murty, President, Tsunami Society, Canada This was a very topical address by Tad Murthy, who talked in detail about the available tools and techniques in the Industry that can avert losses of any future consequences of shoreline disasters. He spoke of the many surveys and data available worldwide that monitor wave characteristics and wave trends and mentioned that most of these tidal data has been made in an era when GIS was unheard of. The need to update these data, especially the amphrodomic points are of crucial importance. He also demonstrated the potential of GIS in developing coastal information in depth. Mr. Kapil Sibal, Minister of Science and Technology, Government of India The Minister of Science and Technology addressed a packed hall of over 400 and spoke at length of his views of the mapping sector giving glimpses of his vision of how this industry might shape up. He mentioned that there should be no dearth of technology or tools in this fast changing world. What is required is information. We need to build information and information based products that are tailor made for the right use of the users. Generating information is a primary ingredient to development. He told the audience that the long awaited map policy and the NSDI policy has been passed by some of the highest authorities of the country and now awaits approval from the Cabinet. He also mentioned that this new map policy shall revolutionise the way maps and mapping is seen in the country and will soon enable a more conducive environment for the government and the private. He also talked about the Tsunami and pointed out that to truly tackle calamities of such scale, a regional spatial data infrastructure of the whole South Asian region is needed. We have to aim at that to achieve the basic at country level. Keynote Session – Technology Trends This popular and noteworthy Keynote was chaired by A R Dasgupta, Dy Director, Space Application Centre, India. The session had two key presentations, with each elaborating the growing needs of geospatial market and Asia in particular. Dr Terrance Keating, Executive Vice President, Z/I Imaging, Intergraph talked of various surveying techniques available with Intergraph coupled with the complete solutions of GIS that the organisation has to offer. He elaborated on the techniques and concepts involved with these tools. His emphasis was on the importance of fast changing urban development and the need to map these changes to monitor. Bhupinder Singh, Managing Director, Bentley Systems talked of the different tools in a single platform concept and mentioned that in the coming days one need to think of multiple complex problems and multiple networked users. One needs to start thinking of single platform products with adequate tools and customizations. Keynote Session – GIS Industry in India: Moving Up the Value Chain Two important presentations attempted to gauge the Indian GIS Industry and depicted that perhaps the Industry has moved up the value chain. Both presentations had an encouraging impact showcasing the changing nature of the industry and its present strengths to take on various challenges of the nation without looking outside. “Reaching the top of the pyramid is not far” B V R Mohan Reddy, Chairman and Managing Director, Infotech Enterprises Ltd., talked at the concept level interspaced with examples of various Indian case studies. He mentioned that the value pyramid is broadly classified into three layers. The lowest layer is the primary layer, which involves data centric work, and organizations involved in data centric activities. The middle layer involves application centric activities and mostly can be addressed by software applications and utilities. The top most layer of the pyramid is representative of the solution centric organizations that mostly work in the consulting mode. He identified newer areas of the user industry being those working in web-GIS and Traffic Telematics. “Are ‘we’ solving ‘our’ problems?” Rajesh Kalra, Executive Vice President, RMSI, followed with a thought provoking speech. He classified the overall GIS Industry into 5 basic types -
He significantly pointed out that perhaps we, the GIS Industry of India are still solving problems of places outside India and for our own problems we are looking outwards. Definitely a hard hitting thought. Exhibition Spanning over an area of around 1800 sqm, the exhibition of Map India was inaugurated on 7th morning. Over 40 exhibitors thronged the large space distributed in 4 halls. Huge influx of visitors walked over the area in the initial 3 hours after the opening over tea and coffee. The influx again gained momentum in the last hour of the day. |
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