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Ananya Ghosh Jain Ananya.ghosh@GISdevelopment.net 
Map Middle East 2008, the 5th Annual International Geospatial Conference and Exhibition, was held from April 8-10, 2008 at Dubai International Convention Centre, Dubai, UAE. With the mission of fostering the use and spread of geospatial technologies among communities, 'Map Middle East 2008' served as a unique platform for convergence, sharing and exchange of knowledge/experiences to the mapping community comprising map producers, users, academic institutions, industry, technology developers and policy makers to understand each others' requirements and discuss, deliberate and formulate strategies for achieving development objectives through the geospatial community. THEME Map Middle East 2008 revolved around the theme 'Geospatial Leadership: Technology Trends and Best Practices'. In the past two decades, many business enterprises and government departments across the globe have increasingly understood the significance and relevance of bringing geographic component into their planning, design and delivery phases. Today, we find that geographic information technologies are not developed in isolation; rather they have been integrated with manufacturing, exploration and architectural fields as well. The best people to create awareness about these latest developments that are taking place in the geospatial domain are the leaders who drive this geospatial industry, take path-breaking initiatives, have exceptional management capabilities/leadership qualities, and above all, have a grand vision for the future. These leaders, through their thought-invoking presentations tried to elaborate upon the progress made by geospatial technologies in the end user segments as well as delved into the technological elements that can bring GIS into the mainstream in the forthcoming years. INAUGURATION The Inaugural Ceremony witnessed an august gathering of eminent dignitaries, namely, Dr. M.P Narayanan (President, GIS Development), Essa AlHaj AlMaidoor (Assistant Director General for Building & Planning, UAE), Preetha Pulusani (Joint Managing Director, Rolta India Ltd.), Roger Hoglund (Director-Monitoring & Special Survey Application, Trimble, Germany) and Er. Mohammad Al Zaffin (Director-GIS Centre, Dubai Municipality, UAE), setting a perfect tone for the three-day conference. Dr. Narayanan welcomed all dignitaries and delegates to Map Middle East 2008. Preetha Pulusani delivered an interesting lecture on 'Geospatial Technology: Value and Trends', tracing the evolution of GIS and IT, their importance, organizational challenges as well as possible solutions. Roger Hoglund also delivered a presentation, which was on 'Evolution of Surveying Technologies' that traced the history of surveying from the early 1940s to the present day. Er. Zaffin, representing Dubai Municipality, expressed his pleasure at being the co-organiser of the conference as well as expressed hope that it would be as grand a success as the previous years. EXHIBITION A grand exhibition was organized as part of Map Middle East 2008. It was inaugurated by Essa AlHaj AlMaidoor, Assistant Director General for Building & Planning, UAE. The exhibition was spread over an area of 3200 sq mts with over 50 exhibitors from across the globe showcasing and displaying products, services and solutions. Map Middle East 2008 witnessed a turnout of 1323 participants representing 31 countries, of which 716 were delegates, while the remaining 607 were visitors who came to visit the three-day exhibition. CONFERENCE PROGRAMME The conference comprised 3 Plenary Sessions, 1 Regional Session, 2 Technology Shows (one by Rolta and the other by Trimble), 1 Workshop and a Poster Session. Map Middle East 2008 also hosted an Exhibitors Reception as well as a Gala Dinner for all the conference delegates on April 8th and 9th respectively. In all, there were 17 plenary presentations and 5 invited presentations each in the Regional Session on 'Municipal GIS' and the Workshop on 'Space Law for Decision Makers', organised by Space Reconnaisance Centre, UAE and sponsored by Space Imaging. PLENARY SESSIONS Geospatial Technology (Part 1 and Part 2) The Plenary Session on Geospatial Technologies was divided into two sessions, held on two consecutive days (April 8th and 9th). The speakers of the first session included Dr. Marc Tremblay (Head, Commercial Business Unit, DigitalGlobe, USA), Dean P. Angelides (Manager, International Sales and Operations, ESRI, USA), and Norikazu Watanabe (Managing Director, Sokkia, Singapore). The second session had five speakers, namely, Michael Shaw (Director, National Space- Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Coordination Office, USA), Paul Stephens (Director Sales & Marketing, DMC International Imaging, UK ), John O'Hara (Executive VP-International, Pitney Bowes MapInfo, UK), Alexander Wiechert (Business Director, Vexcel Imaging GmbH, Austria), and Dr. Ron Lake (Chairman & CEO, Galdos Systems Inc., Canada) Dr. Tremblay spoke on "Fast and Cost Efficient National Mapping Programs with DigitalGlobe's Constellation of High Resolution Satellites". He stressed on the need for national mapping that is paramount for a country's efficient land use, government policy, homeland security and infrastructure development and how DigitalGlobe is altering the approach to national mapping with its ability to collect and produce complete national base layers of high resolution satellite content. The next speaker, Dean Angelides, spoke on the various application areas of GIS as well as how ESRI is committed to fulfilling the ever-growing needs of the users with respect to the emerging applications. Norikazu Watanabe gave an insightful presentation on 'Technology Trends in Surveying and Mapping'. The first presentation of Plenary Session on Geospatial Technologies (Part 2) was delivered by Michael Shaw. His presentation covered varied aspects of US policy on spacebased positioning, navigation and timing systems or GPS. The next presentation titled 'Developments in the DMC Small Satellite Constellation' by Paul Stephens covered one of the most important application of spacebased earth monitoring, that is, disaster management. John O'Hara's presentation was on Location Intelligence, its emergence, application sectors, relation with GIS, and how it has come of age in the past few years. The next speaker was Alexander Weichart who elaborated upon how a virtual 3-D Earth is created and what kind of related developments we, as users, can look forward to in the near future. The last presentation was by Dr. Ron Lake, titled "Interoperability to Interconnection". It dealt with need for and creation of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (using open standards). Geospatial Policies The second plenary session put forth the policy initiatives in the geospatial domain leading to an interesting and informative panel discussion in the end. The discussions revolved round the how geographic data can be made more accessible to the users and the community at large. The first speaker of the session was Prof. Harlan Onsrud (Executive Director, GSDI Association, USA). The presentation was as thoughtprovoking as its title, 'Thinking Locally and Acting Globally: Government Information Policy Choices in Responding to the Global Geographic Data and Services Phenomena'. It explored the policy choices for each nation with respect to geographic data availability as well as the challenges faced by new players in this industry from the major corporate players and ways to overcome them (like creating a global standard and a global marketplace for geographic data). The second speaker was Prof. Stig Enemark (President, International Federation of Surveyors, Denmark) who spoke in length about 'Land Management and Spatial Enabled Government'. Prof. Mike Jackson (Director,Centre for Geospatial Science,University of Nottingham, UK) gave the next presentation on 'SDI and the Changing Dynamics of the Geospatial Market' which essentially delved on OGC standards for SDI, influence of ethnocentricism on OGC and SDI, and market dynamics with respect to emergence of a new SDI model. The final speaker was by Dr. Derek Clarke (Chief Director : Surveys & Mapping, South Africa) who spoke on applications of a Geospatial- Information Decision Model.  The plenary session on Best Practices saw a total of six speakers delivering presentations on the best practices in geospatial technologies in their respective organizations. The first speaker of the session, Er. Mohammad Al Zaffin (Director-GIS Centre, Dubai Municipality, UAE), spoke on how geospatial technologies have been tailored to suit the strategic and operational needs of Dubai Emirate. The presentation by Gen. Khalid Abdullah Al Bu-Ainnian (Former UAE Air Force and Air Defence Commander) delved on the geospatial application developments that has resulted in streamlined workflows and integrated use of geospatial data in many of the strategic departments. Cindi Salas (Manager-GIS at Center Point Energy, USA) gave a presentation on 'Enterprise GIS Revolution at Center Point Energy' that gave an overview of the broad scope of applications of GIS within an enterprise, be it for system design, asset management or for predicting damage to company facilities. The next speaker, Richard Alan Vincent (President and COO, Virtual Geomatics, Canada) talked about the current standards and operational best practices from the perspective of a data collector as well as discussed postprocessing requirements, reporting and metadata from an end-user's point of view. The last speaker of the session was Karim Bouchfanj (General Manager, Tele Atlas MENA, Director of Business Development, Jordan) who spoke about the Fleet Management market trends and the needs of that market vis-à-vis digital maps. VALEDICTORY SESSION The Valedictory Session, held on the last day of the conference, heralded the end of the eventful three-day conference. A number of awards were presented during the session. Swati Grover (Regional Manager-Middle East and North Africa, GIS Development) delivered the Vote of Thanks on behalf of the organisers of the event. She expressed deep gratitude to all the delegates and exhibitors for participating in Map Middle East 2008 and heartily welcomed all to visit Dubai next year again for Map Middle East 2009, scheduled to be held from April 5-7, 2009. Page 1 of 1
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