Map Middle East 2005
Emergence of the regional forum for the Middle East
Ayon Tarafdar
ayon@gisdevelopment.net
The lively and wonderful city of Dubai played the perfect
host to all the participants of the first annual Middle
East conference on Geospatial Information, Technology and
Applications 'Map Middle East 2005'. Organised by GIS Development
(India), Dubai Municipality (UAE) and CSDMS (India) the
event was held from April 23 to 25, 2005 at Al Bustan Rotana
Hotel.
Under the theme of 'Geospatial Information and Knowledge
Economy' the event fulfilled the need for a regional forum
in the geospatial domain. The stakeholders - academia, researchers,
students and the industry - shared their experiences and
explored arenas for future geospatial collaboration.
The participants witnessed speeches from top decision makers,
from widely acclaimed members of the academia and prominent
researchers. The speeches showcased the role played by geospatial
technology in the development of the Middle East region.
The conference highlighted the need for firmly placing 'geospatial
knowledge' at the heart of economic agenda of the regional
nations. The participants at the event called for developing
a GIS that reaches out to the general public.
The event was supported by six Gold Sponsors (Intergraph,
BAE Systems, Bentley, Rolta, Global Scan Technologies, and
ESRI), and three co-sponsors (Military Survey Department,
UAE; Space Reconnaissance Centre, UAE; Town Planning Department,
Al Ain City, Government of Abu Dhabi).
The conference was attended by 622 delegates from the entire
Middle East region - UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Oman,
Qatar, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan,
Egypt, Sudan, Syria - as well as from countries such as
USA, Switzerland, The Netherlands.
There were three plenary sessions (Geospatial Information
and Knowledge Economy, SDI: International Initiatives, Technology
Trends), two keynote sessions (Large Scale Mapping, GIS
and SDI in the Middle East), three workshops (Mobile Mapping
Systems, GIS and the Law, GPS).