With the theme Geospatial Technology for Sustainable Planet Earth, Map World Forum was envisioned as a platform

dedicated to raising the profile and expanding the horizons of geospatial industry. The four day conference from 10-13 February, 2009 turned out to be a phenomenal success where there was an active and dynamic participation of over 1700 members (1220 registered and 560 exhibition visitors) of GIS community from over 40 countries. The four day-long geospatial extravaganza was well represented by professionals from different user segments belonging to a wide spectrum of geospatial applications including utilities, land administration, petroleum and mining, rural, e-governance to name a few. The participants included the stakeholders in geospatial industry around the world comprising of scientists, trainers, technology developers, application and solution providers, users and professionals and media agencies and above all, students, the future of the domain. The forum offered a unique indepth learning environment on different aspects of geospatial technology. This year there was a large vendor exhibition unveiled providing participants an opportunity to keep themselves abreast of latest products being showcased.

Inaugural session
Dr. M P Narayanan, Chairperson, GIS Development, welcomed the gathering and highlighted the significance of the global platform that Map World Forum provides to users, developers, experts of geospatial technologies and enables people from all walks of life to have a ringside view of latest happenings in the geospatial arena. The patron of the Conference, Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Kapil Sibal said that the Government would soon launch a service in 3-D format in six metros in the country beginning with the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. Stating that the economic meltdown has not affected the geospatial industry, the Union Minister said there were several applications for the geospatial data in the public service domain, from land administration to police. He also spoke on how the Centre had made changes in the Map Policy in 2005 and the launch of India Geo portal. Several states where such a portal will be launched shortly, are also planning to have their own Geospatial DataAgencies, Sibal said. In his guest address K K Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, Rolta India reiterated the industry's commitment to further the cause of development of geospatial technologies. He highlighted the relevance of applications of the technology in sustainable development right from the days of the Cholera epidemic in London in 1884 to the present day dialogue on global warming. He expressed the hope that geospatial technologies will continue to bring important solutions to citizens in the form of a range of services which are relevant to the society, from disaster management to health services. Hon'ble Vice-President of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari inaugurated the Conference. Bouquet was presented by Dr. V Jayaraman, Director, National Remote Sensing Centre, India. Honble Vice-President noted that the instruments for accessing geospatial information have become much simpler. "Let me acknowledge that I was impressed with the vision of the Forum of aiming beyond speeches and discussions to find practical ways to improve people's lives," Vice-President Ansari said. The VicePresident expressed his opinion that the use of technology is only an enabler. The uses that technology could be put to are guided by the political, social and economic context of the time. "Today everyone can access them through freely available services of Google, Microsoft and other companies. The instruments for accessing geospatial information have also become simpler, and therefore more user-friendly" Vice-President Ansari said. He, however, also cautioned that such technology may have an implication for the national security. "The terrorists who attacked Mumbai used Global Positioning Systems and Google Earth maps to identify their targets and the terrain. The only constructive option lies in better regulation of geospatial data and of relevant stake-holders. A fine balance is needed to allow geospatial technologies to flourish without compromising on national security concerns," Vice-PresidentAnsari said. The Minister for Major Industries, Andhra Pradesh Government Geetha Reddy was also present on the occassion.

The special highlight of the inaugural session was the award of excellence conferred on seven selected personalities/organizations drawn from mapping agencies, professional societies, companies, individuals and programmes for their outstanding contribution towards development and growth of geographic information tools, products, applications that in turn helped in making geographic information a public commodity. The awards were conferred on: u Dr. Jane Goodall, Founder, Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messanger of Peace and Prof. C K Prahalad, Paul & Ruth McCracken Distinguised University Professor of Strategy Stephen M. Ross School of Business at University of Michigan for their personal achievements u Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, Rolta India with Lifetime Kamal K. Achievement Award for his outstanding contribution to the global geospatial industries with his vision, expertise and leadership . u Virtual Earth for its outstanding service/contribution towards Microsoft Popularizing Geospatial Content to Common Man Worldwide uof Photogrammetry, University of Hannover for its outstanding Institute service/contribution towards Building Geospatial Capacities and Knowledge Network u Open Geospatial Consortium in the category of Professional Societies for its outstanding services/contribution to geospatial community worldwide u Land Information New Zealand in the category of National MappingAgency Vote of thanks was presented by Maj. Gen. (Dr.) R Siva Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, NSDI, Department of Science & Technology, Government of India. The Exhibition, which ran parallel to the Conference was inaugurated by Hon'ble Vice-President of India Mohammad HamidAnsari after the inaugural session.

Guest Addresses
Environmentalist Dr. Jane Goodall and renowned management expert Prof. C K Prahalad delivered the guest address at the forum. Dr. Goodall, the primatologist and a tireless campaigner for both world peace and environmental protection devoted her presentation to the relationship between her conservation work and information technology, especially spatial technology. As the closest living primate to Homo Sapiens, her work is based on the premise that an understanding of chimps would lead to improved understanding of mankind itself. The relationship with geography began some 14 years ago, when Dr. Goodall began to realise the threat posed by deforestation of the regions around Gomb to the lives of her chimps. Dr. Lilian Pintea, who directs the conservation science program at Jane Goodall Institute, says GIS is a natural fit to the needs of a conservation group, although he noted that it is important for GIS people to understand problems from the conservationists' point of view. Dr. Goodall believes that there's reason for hope because there's still great power in children seeing nature with their own eyes and the indomitable human spirit to tackle large projects and not give up until we see results. Prof. C K Prahalad graced the occasion and spoke at length about technology and how it is viewed by common people. He said, during the last decade the arcane field of geospatial mapping technology has become accessible to ordinary people. Google Map and Microsoft Planet have changed the way we look at the world today. He cited the example of Mumbai terrorists attack where Indian commando units and the people at large watching CNN or Google news and maps had access to instant geographical analysis of the problem. Visual techniques were an integral part of the total episode. He explored how managers can utilize mapping technology to dramatically improve the quality of their operations. Prof. Prahlad had some words of wisdom for the geospatial industry to redeem itself in the times of recession. He elaborated that the live and let live principle needs to be adhered to now more than any other time. The grab-gobble strategies will result in 'zero sum gain' for the geospatial industry.

CHANGE

CLIMATE BUILDING CAPACITY

PUBLIC SECTOR
& FOOD SECURITY

ENERGY

AGRICULTURE

HOUSING

FUSION

GEOSPATIAL

COMMUNICATION

MINING

Plenary Sessions
In total there were four plenary sessions. The first Plenary session Geospatial Technologies and Sustainable Development was chaired by Dr. V Jayaraman, Director, National Remote Sensing Centre. The speakers for the session were from Ministry of Earth Sciences, DigitalGlobe, PCI Geomatics and ESRI India. Dr. Shailesh Nayak, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, called for an integrated and multi-disciplinary approach to tackle the problems arising out of climate change. The changes in atmospheric concentration of green house gases and aerosols, in solar radiation and land surface properties have altered the energy balance of the climate system of the earth. During the last thirty years, host of satellites have provided very useful data on many of the parameters responsible for the change. It is necessary to evolve a measurement strategy to improve accuracy and scientific content for future satellites. Jill Smith, Chief Executive Officer, DigitalGlobe, offered insights into how she will conduct her company in the near future. She wants her company to proactively collect imagery of regions of the world where climate change or other problems might be of interest to the global geospatial community. Smith described her vision as a "sustainable lens" and, providing a twist on her own company's name to infer a broader meaning, a "digital globe" of information that utilizes a constellation of satellites with "appropriate and re-usable data." Dr. Robert Moses, President, PCI Geomatics, expressed his belief that one day a web service will be used to query and analyze for change detection in a region using not only a time-series of remotely-sensed imagery but advanced classification algorithms to automatically map and highlight the affected areas. The democratization of data will herald a plethora of information to support the status of Gaia. In the next decade there will be three profound changes in our industry: The plethora of earth-observing sensors; the rise of the web; and new, powerful processing algorithms that processes the many dimensions of this data," he said. Rajesh C Mathur, President, ESRI India, stressed on the fact that fostering the growth of national and global food supplies is necessary for eliminating hunger and reducing poverty. In future, agricultural growth must come primarily from rising biological yields rather than from expanding cultivated areas or intensifying agriculture through irrigation, because fertile land and water are becoming increasingly scarce. Whether implementing

organic farming methods, finding the most profitable and healthy places to plant new crops, or allotting farmland for preservation to secure future food production, GIS has the capabilities to aid in discovering and establishing sustainable agriculture practices. Second day of the Conference started with the plenary session on Geospatial Technology Development and Trends with speakers from Tele Atlas, Rolta India, Leica Geosystems and ESRI. The session was chaired by Shankar Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Department of Information Technology, India Mark Steele, Chief Operating Officer, TeleAtlas Asia Pacific talked about Tele Atlas' data collection capability and vision. The only way user demand for data currency and accuracy can possibly be met is by getting the users themselves to update their own maps. Steele said that Tele Atlas wants to be about enhancing the journey, and providing the thrill of discovery, and much less about just getting you where you want to go. One of the next steps in this process is the personalization of information and location preferences so that the device can help connect one with places that one will enjoy. Preetha Pulusani, Director, Rolta India, started her talk by questioning why geospatial technology is still considered expensive, stating that it's because the value proposition is not always clear to decision makers. To get beyond this perception, geospatial must become more of a strategic part of operations, and Pulusani feels that the route is through geospatial fusion. The idea of fusion takes advantage of all past development work that have stood up multiple databases and customized solutions, providing a conduit for each of these disparate systems to talk with each other. Martin Nix, Senior Vice President of Mining and Agriculture, Leica Geosystems, spoke about increase in efficiency of mining that reduce the inputs of fuel, fertilizer and water for less of footprints on our planet. The application of geospatial technology toward sustainability goals becomes quite practical in the resource extraction sector. Positioning technology, coupled with communications, is moving towards machine control and location-aware machinery that dramatically increases safety and improves efficiency. "Geographic Information System technology is now entering into a new and rapidly expanding era of increased accessibility, applicability, transparency, and meaningfulness" said Lawrie E Jordan, Director - Imaging Division, ESRI. "This evolution is transformational and global in scope, with broad implications for the social, economic, and environmental fabrics which connect us." The new GIS computing environment is a services-oriented, open architecture that delivers global Geographyon-Demand in near real time. Efficiency and return on investment (ROI) are significantly enhanced by task-at hand workflows and industry-specific project templates. The foundation and overarching strength of this new approach is a GIS-centric core data model. Geospatial for Public Sector was the theme of the third plenary session chaired by Bas Kok, President of Global Spatial Data Infrastructure. The session was represented by the speakers from Tata Consultancy Services Limited, International Institute for GeoInformation Science and Earth Observation (ITC) and BISAG. Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice President & Head, Government Industry Solutions Unit (ISU) Tata Consultancy Services Limited, India talked about the hybrid technologies for sustaining planet earth. Citing an example of tsunami early warning system that is implemented using the best out of embedded, IT and geospatial technologies for raising alerts against tsunami and coastal hazards he stressed on the fact that hybrid technology solutions have a valuable potential to help government deliver good governances. Similar s-governance systems with converged ideas from different technology areas will help sustain the life & environment and hence sustaining planet earth. Prof Martien Molenaar, Rector, International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), The Netherlands talked on why cross border education for capacity building is important. The regional phenomenon taking place has an affect at a global scale. The uneven development of economy results in migration from developing

nation to developed nations. The population growth in China will have an affect on the food market in the coming years. In order to handle these global issues need is for a community of decision makers who have common understanding of these processes and the education system should be such to provide a common understanding. This can be done through cooperative institution with joint programme he said. Arup Dasgupta, Distinguished Professor of Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics and Honorary Managing Editor of GIS Development presented the case study of the state government of Gujarat in the sector of health, education, crime and accidents and how the government has implemented successfully geospatial technology to aid the decision making process and address the issues of conflicting demands at different levels and by different players and struck a balance for arriving at judicious decisions, achieving an overall development of the State. The last plenary session of the conference chaired by Chandrasekhar Nori, Managing Director, Infotech Geospatial India talked on Geospatial for Sustainable Infrastructure Development. Speakers from Trimble Navigation, CH2M Hill and AirportsAuthority of India shared the stage in the session. Vice President of Trimble Navigation, Bryn Fosburgh, told the conference that the case for including these technologies in new projects in the construction industry is so compelling that 30 per cent of new sites now insist on their use. However, machine guidance is of little value unless the position of the machine can be mapped against other significant objects. It is also of little value unless the information can be transferred, in real time, to people or business processes for which that position is important. Fosburgh said one of the best ways to ensure the use of the technology was for government to mandate it. Stanley Trim, Vice President, CH2M Hill, said that the integration of machine guidance into processing systems was driving efficiency in mines all over the world, and was having a major impact on the cost of farming. 'It is no longer a technology it's a tool for the boardroom,' he said. Some of these applications can be extremely simple. They may involve managing the arrival and departure of trucks at a mine, such that they never have to wait for ore. Others are much more sophisticated, such as using sensors to make judgments about the quality of the ore as it is mined. This information can be communicated to computer-aided design software in the head office, which in turn can adjust the position of the excavation equipment. V K Yadava, Executive Director (ATM), Airports Authority of India talked at large on the No Objection Certificate Application System (NOCAS), a web based application implemented by Airports Authority of India in order to automate the steps involved in obtaining a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for height clearance.

Panel Discussion
The last session of second day of the conference was a panel discussion on Public Private Partnership (PPP): Challenges and Opportunities by the eminent leaders of the geospatial community. The panel was moderated by Pallava Bagla, Science Editor, NDTV, India. The panelists for the session were Dr. Vanessa Lawrence, Chief Executive Officer, Ordnance Survey, United Kingdom who was present with us via a prerecorded video address; K R Sridhara Murthi, Executive Director, Antrix Corporation, India; Dr. Prithvish Nag, Director, National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation, India, Dr. Ravi Gupta, Editor-in-Chief and Executive Director of CSDMS and Mark Reichardt, President and CEO, Open Geospatial Consortium, USA. Some of the key issues deliberated upon by the panel were how PPP is a two way process and both the private and public sector need to make equal contributions and investments for better results. Lack of supportive policy environment was one of the major deterrents to the industry reaching its true growth potentials, making them over-cautious for active participation. One trend that was noted was that, though many PPP initiatives have taken place in the past as pilot projects many of them have not yet been completed. The discussions proved to be stimulating for both government and industry representatives.

Three symposia, six seminars, four forums, one summit, and three industry tracks by Rolta, Geoeye and ESRI were conducted in parallel on the last two days of the conference.

Symposia
There were three symposia on the subjects of Geospatial for e-Governance, Geospatial for Petroleum and Mining and Geospatial for Rural Development.

Geospatial for e-Governance

With an aim to bring forth the development of GIS within the government processes and the gap areas that are needed to be taken into account, the symposium targeted to put forth identified GIS-enabled best practices from different regions of the world. The symposium conducted in partnership with National Institute of Smart Government (NISG) was chaired by J Satyanarayan, Former Chief Executive Officer, NISG. In his welcome address he stressed on the fact that spatial information in e-governance plan needs to be given the status of Mission Mode Project which will result in efficient resource allocation and recognition by all. Ashis Sanyal, Scientist 'G'-HOD, Department of Information Technology talked about integrating GIS into e-governance outcomes. Sharon Cottrell (General Manager, Land Information New Zealand), Dr Muhammad R Bualhamam (Deputy Director General, Ras Al Khaimah Municipality, UAE), K Dakshina Murthy (Project Manager, Centre for Good Governance) and Hemant Kumar (Fellow, Karnataka State Council for Science & Technology) presented the initiatives of good governance by their respective organisations. Dr. Robert Barr, OBE, Chairman, Manchester Geomatics explored the issues of data infrastructure from commercial, academic and local government perspectives. He argued that, to succeed, a spatial data infrastructure must satisfy four criteria: it must be demonstrably in the public interest; it must concentrate on data which should be collected once and used many times; it must be sustainably financed and there should be an effective, though lightweight mechanism of governance. D Vasudevan, Consultants, Yamuna Action Plan II highlighted how technologies can be very effectively utilized to provide better citizen service through Citizen Facilitation Centres that provide all citizen services through single window approach and strengthening the urban local bodies. Khalid A Hameed Al Hammadi, Chief GIS Division, Central Informatics Organization (UAE) explained the salient features of a Web GIS Application developed for the Ministry of Health in the Kingdom of Bahrain. P V Rajashekhar, Director, Survey of India explained the Nirmala Nagara, a municipal e-governance project, initiated by the Urban Development Department of Government of Karnataka.

Geospatial for Petroleum and Mining

The Oil & Mining industry has been influenced by geospatial technology in one form or other. Be it surveying at the time of geological exploration or remote sensing at the time of site selection and pipeline routing or GIS for efficient distribution and emergency response, the geospatial technology is rapidly gaining prominence in the sector. Keeping this in view, symposium on Petroleum & Mining was conducted in partnership with Geospatial Information and Technology Association (GITA) on the usage of geospatial technologies and applications in the different sections of Petroleum and Mining industry. The symposium was chaired by Robert M Samborski, Executive Director, GITA. In the welcome address, Mr. Samborski discussed about interdependencies and dependencies of gas & oil companies for identifying and classifying critical infrastructure, developing response plans and addressing issues of security & protection. He also discussed how infrastructures are geospatially interdependent and how a local environmental event can create state changes in all of them.

B Akala, Former Chairman, CMPDI, Coal India in his Guest address discussed about the usage and advantage of GIS applications in mining and petroleum industry, the current status in the industry and the various applications. He also stressed upon using the new and state-of-art technologies in industry for better management of day to day functions. A very interesting issue discussed by V D Rajagopal, Director, Department of Mines and Geology, in his keynote address pertaining to the compensation to resource bearing states related to Petroleum & Natural Gas. He pointed out various other issues related to state government for the need of infrastructure and socio-economic development of local people from oil & gas exploitation. He suggested oil producing companies to share profits (in terms of gas) to resource state for the upliftment of society like standard schooling, women employment, technical education, etc. The other keynote speeches were from ONGC and GAIL India. Further there were 3 technical sessions focusing on Exploration & Production, Distribution and Rehabilitation & Resettlement. There were 10 technical papers presenters from petroleum & mining industry which gave an insight of the various applications based case studies to the audience.

Geospatial for Rural Development

The key point of 'people-centric technology' that emerged out of the deliberations during the first two days of the forum continued to figure at the Symposium on Geospatial for Rural Development. The symposium delved into how GIS can aid in improving the lives of those at the grass roots. The affiliate partner of the symposium was National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD). The chairperson of the symposium, B K Sinha, Director General, National Institute of Rural Development, India, during his welcome address emphasised how rural development tops the agenda of the Indian government. He informed that Rs 76,000 crores is the budget allocated to the sector. He highlighted the issue of land administration and informed that a Government of India's committee on land records has recommended usage of Geospatial technologies for all the land surveys to be carried out. These include GIS, GPS and Cartosat data. The second speaker, Dr V S Hegde from ISRO, made presentation on Village Resources Centre (VRCs), an innovative geospatial-technology based programme that to a large extent has empowered the rural societies. The programme has components as TeleEducation, Tele-Medicine, Development Communication, E-Governance and Emergency Communication Infrastructure. Dr Hegde while mentioning that rural India makes 10% of the global population, strongly put across the idea of 'social inclusion' through his presentation. He informed that large scale operationalization of space applications would be backed by future satellite launches that include updations of Oceansat, Resourcesat and Cartosat. An interesting presentation on usage of remote sensing for crop yield estimation forecasting was made by Dr. Dalip Singh (Ministry of Agriculture) and Dr. M Chakraborty, Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad. The programme known as FASAL (Forecasting if Agricultural output using Space, Agrometeorology, and Land based observations), has succeeded in addressing the key concerns of the rural occupation i.e. agriculture. The issue of participatory GIS came up to the forum when a presentation on 'Mapping the Neighbourhood' project of GIS Development was made by Suman Arya. It showed how maps created by local rural community helped themselves as well as the policy makers to understand the problems of water, sewage and deforestation. The symposium further witnessed presentations made on various aspects of rural development as Rural Health, Rural Informatics & Rural SDI and Agriculture, Land Use Planning and Land Reforms and ended with a panel discussion on 'GIS on Micro-Planning'.

Forums
Editors Forum with the theme The Role of Media in Building Public Geospatial Knowledge Network was chaired by Prof. Arup Dasgupta, Managing Editor (honorary), GIS Development. In his opening remarks, Prof Dasgupta pointed out that the scope of the industry is increasing by the day and it is important to educate and inform both the uninitiated and the newly initiated about the technology/industry. And that is only possible by proactive participation of the media. Jon Fairall, Managing Editor, ASM, Australia, raised the question as to where exactly people who use the application fit in the industry. He opined that if a publication builds a business model to cater to the people enlightened by Google Earth, it will be out of business in no time. Voicing similar sentiments, Joe Francica, Editor-in-Chief, Directions Magazine, said his portal will continue to educate the professional community and leave the rest to popular press. Matt Ball, Editor-America/Asia Pacific, Vector 1 Media, felt that the geospatial media is not presenting analyses and added that we need to cut through the technology and show the public minus technical jargon as to how they can use the technology. Durk Haarsma, Publisher, GIM International, opined that media should play an enabling role. Analysing the dominance of online publications over print publications, Nitin K Tripathi, Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Geoinformatics, said though there are several advantages of online publications over print publications, print holds an eternal charm and convenience of reading. The Developers Forum provided the audience with a good understanding of the different geospatial development environments and developer support from Autodesk, ESRI, Erdas, Oracle and Microsoft. In order to address the complex, multidisciplinary milieu it was necessary that professionals from contributing disciplines come together on a common platform to discuss issues and share their experiences. Keeping this in view, Geospatial Science Forum was organised. Dr. Ing. Karsten Jacobsen, Academic Direcor, Institute of Photogrammetry and Geoinformations talked about the potential of large format digital aerial cameras and how a very high resolution satellite images poses competition to aerial images. Christian Heipke, Vice President and Research EUROSDR from Leibniz Universitat described his organisation, modus of operation, and presented the list of currently running activities to illustrate its impact on the European Geoinformatics community. The other speakers of the forum were from University of Minnesota, Microsoft Research India, National Remote Sensing Centre, Hewlett-Packard, University of Costa Rica and FZI Research Center for Information Technologies. The Education Forum conducted in association with the Univ of Salzburg, Austria and Digital Learning had an objective to discuss the current geospatial education status, curriculum and the employability of the students. The forum was chaired by Dr M K Munshi, Proprietor, Green Associates and moderated by Dr Satyaprakash, Head, GIS Institute. Dr. P L N Raju, Incharge Geoinformatics Division, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS) presented the activities being carried out by IIRS in promoting the geospatial training through different means, including the EduSat programme. Dr. Nitin Tripathi, Professor, Remote Sensing & GIS, Asian Institute of Technology (Thailand) touched upon the staus of the geospatial education in Thailand and the courses being offered by the institute. Prof I V Murlikrishna, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru Technology University described about the growing geospatial market in India and the need of the requirement of more trained geospatial manpower and what the educational institute should be doing to provide more trained manpower. Brig K K V Khanzode, Director, Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics besides presenting the offering at Symbiosis and the geospatial market emphasised on the students involvement with the society to integrate the geospatial with the common man.

Seminars
The seminars on utilities (sponsor - Infotech Enterprises), land administration (sponsor Speck Systems), third dimension to national mapping (sponsor - DigitalGlobe), coastal zone mapping for disaster management, spatial data infrastructure (sponsor - ERDAS), urban development (sponsor - Genesys International) were held in parallel.

Location Summit 2.0

The market of location is moving forward in high gear and users are finding value in Location Enabled Services. With the theme "Towards Collaborative Models" brought together the pioneers, industry leaders and developers who are setting the direction for the future of location technologies and markets, guiding the development of new applications and shaping way to meet the challenge of making location enabled services ubiquitous. Overall the summit had a vision session, two keynote sessions and three tracks. At the vision session Debashish Chatterjee, CEO, Netxcell talked on the mobile marketing through LBS. Prakash Iyer of Trimble offered the numbers for the Field Services Management (FSM) market based on an Aberdeen Research report. FSM is predicted to be $1.7 B by 2012 with market drivers being better service; constant cost pressure; increased productivity; vehicle and driver safety. Rakesh Verma, MD, MapmyIndia and Navdeep Manaktala, Head - Contexts (Maps & Search), Nokia India talked about the activities carried on by their organization and their companies vision in future. The two keynote session highlighted the varied applications of location at enterprise and consumer level. The keynote speakers were Anush Gopalan, CEO, Heterogenous Inc.; S S Sirohi, Deputy Director General VAS, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Dr. S Mathripragada, CTO, Albireo Telematics; B. Martin from DigitalGlobe; Ashutosh Pande, Corporate Vice President and Managing Director, SiRF Technology; Arnout Desmet, Managing Director-South and Southeast Asia, Tele Atlas Asia Pacific and Gurpreet S Pall, General Manager, Live Search and MSN Technologies, India. Presentation by B. Martin illustrated on how organizations can leverage the functionality by adding high-resolution imagery as a base layer to map-based applications via their web client user interfaces. Anush Gopalan stressed on the fact that the market is now aware and demanding for solutions that will allow asset owners and managers to 'Sense, Locate, Communicate, and Control' remotely. Arnout Desmet examined the key factors and emerging technologies that will drive the success for location-based services and applications. He discussed the emerging technologies that contribute to the network of reliable sources helping to keep pace and anticipate changes in India's road systems. S S Sirohi talked on the strategies to increase revenue from Location Based Services. Tracks on Navigation, Location Based Services and Fleet Management had speakers from Motorola Enterprise Mobility, Persistent Systems, SiRF Technology, EI Labs, Bridgewater State College, Ghoom Solutions, Qualcomm, Vidteq, Nuance and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing. Ramesh Sunderaman from Motorola Enterprise Mobility discussed the benefits that mobility can have on the field operations as well as the criteria involved in implementing location-aware mobile field applications and technical considerations in evaluating such solutions. Krishna Vaidyanathan, CEO, EI Labs provided insight on GIS-GPS-RFID enabled integrated workforce and fleet management solution. Vinit Kapoor, Persistants System addressed the technical and business study of Point of Interest location based service from view point of Indian market. Uma Shama from Bridgewater State College presented the applications of emerging web mapping of real-time transit and para transit vehicles by Microsoft Virtual Earth and Google Maps, a world wide application of transit trip planning and a real-time transit vehicle location web service for the blind and individuals with visual impairments. Arunima Nundy from SiRF Technology elaborated on SiRFecosystem innovations that address solutions which drive possible use-cases for location in India. Manjunath Bhajantri from Nuance talked about the value of speech technologies in navigation offerings. Sajeevan G from C-DAC presented a case on indigenous multilingual navigation software SAARATHY. Anand Virani from Qualcomm talked on how connectivity & integration can expand possibilities for navigation.

Technical and Poster Sessions

Over 90 technical papers were presented by several academicians and experts from the industry. The theme of various technical sessions were Environmental Management, Remote Sensing, Disaster Management, Open Source and Web GIS, Urban Development, Natural Resource Management, Emerging Applications and Technology Trends, Surveying and Mapping, Infrastructure and Utilities, Enterprise GIS, Image Processing and Business GIS. The award for the best three paper presention went to: Ashish Sonal u , Chief Executive Officer, Orkash Services u Sumit Kumar Sharma, Technical Lead, Data World, India u A. Sai Venkata Lakshmi, Scientist, Advanced Data Processing Research Institute The best poster presentation award was given to Shahzia Nargese, a students from Anna University.

Industry Tracks
Industry tracks by Rolta, GeoEye and ESRI were conducted at the Conference.

Exhibition
An exhibition spreading in an area of 3000 sqm was organised parallel to the conference. 64 renowned companies took part in the exhibition. The exhibition was a learning experience for those who attended it and was highly successful. There was a great degree of enthusiasm among the exhibitors and it was found that almost all companies were represented by their senior executives. The award for best exhibitors were conferred to Speck Systems, Navayuga and Sokkia. The Exhibitors at Map World Forum were:

ASB Systems CADD Centre Elcome Technologies Pvt. Ltd. ESRI India GEOKOSMOS Groupe SCE India IIC Technologies Janak Positioning Menci Software Srl NATMO NZ Aerial Mapping Ltd PCI Geomatics RMSI Sai BPO Services (SBL) SiRF Technology Inc. South Precision Instrument Pvt. Ltd. Sokkia Singapore Pte Ltd. SGS Infotech Pvt. Ltd Terrasolid WAPMERR India National Remote Sensing Centre Antrix Corporation Limited

Avineon Dept. of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Eminent Services Forest Survey of India Geoeye Gmantis Infotech Kampsax India Pvt Ltd MiTAC Technology Corporation Navayuga Spatial Technologies Pvt Ltd. OmniSTAR B.V. Prime Group Rolta SatNav Technologies Pvt Ltd. Sitronics Speck Systems Ltd. SuperGeo Technologies Inc. Tata Consultancy Services TriCAD UNOOSA Weston Solutions (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Bil Trading Private Limited DigitalGlobe ERDAS Genesys GISTDA Hewlett-Packard India ITC MapmyIndia Min. of Information Technology, GOI NR Can Paragon Inst. Engrs. Pvt. Ltd. Reprographics India RSI SOFTECH Sierra Atlantic SKY GROUP Spectra Precision-Nikon Survey of India Tele Atlas Kalyani India Ltd. Trimble Vexcel Imaging GmbH China Huace

GIS Development Geospatial Excellance Award

At a glittering ceremony during the Gala Dinner on 12th February at the Rock Heights, twenty four winners of GIS Development Geospatial Excellance Award received their trophies. The GIS Development Geospatial Excellence Awards are India's premier private awards that commemorate excellence in the field of geospatial technology applications. It has been conceived to honour the best of geospatial applications across the globe to encourage the adoption and furthering of geospatial science and technologies by organisations all over the world. All the award winners and their work were presented during the conference. The following organisations were felicitated with the award:
The Department u of Survey and Mapping Malaysia (JUPEM), Malaysia State Bureau u of Surveying and Mapping, China Forest Survey u of India, India

u Reliance Communications, India uAgriculture, India Ministry of u Services, UAE Trakhees CED u Power Limited, India North Delhi u National Informatics Centre, India u Space Applications Centre, India u Nigam Ltd, India Bharat Sanchar u Airports Authority of India, India u General Motors India, India u of Chennai, India Corporation u RITES, India u Dubai Municipality, UAE

u Gates Foundations, USA Bill & Melinda u Petroleos Mexicanos, Mexico u Central Informatics Organization, Kingdom of Bahrain u United Kingdom Thames Water, u Authority, Singapore Singapore Land u National Institute of Malaria Research, India u Research Organisation, India Indian Space u Centre for Ocean Information Services, India Indian National u Nigam Limited, India Kanpur Nagar uMovement, Kenya Green Belt u Singapore Flyer, Singapore u Land Information Ontario, Canada

u of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Rajasthan, India Department

GIS Development had organized the first edition of Map World Forum two years ago in the midst of what was as yet untested waters so far as the interaction among geospatial community stakeholders is concerned. The enterprise proved a success laying the foundation for another edition of the event at a scale far greater than the previous one. Since its inception, Map World Forum had been appreciated in the GIS community as one of its kind event which facilitated the coming together of different stakeholders of geospatial sector. At this point in time, we can safely say that the expectations raised by the maiden event has not been belied. Indeed, if anything, the second edition of Map World Forum has touched new heights. The very fact that the conference was inaugurated by the Honble Vice President of the Nation and personalities such as Dr. Jane Goodall and Prof. C K Prahalad addressed the event and there was the participation of apex organizations speaks volumes about the esteem which this event has secured among the people who matter in the geospatial world.

Principal Industry Partner Principal Government Partner

Rolta India Ministry of Science and Technology & Earth Sciences, Government of India Indian Space Research Organisation DigitalGlobe I ERDAS I Speck Systems I ESRI India Infotech Enterprises Vexcel Imaging I Hewlett Packard I CH2M HILL I Trimble I GeoEye

Supporting Organisation Corporate Partners Associate Partner Co-Sponsors

Sponsors

Bag Sponsor Lanyard Sponsor Pen & Notepads Sponsor Affiliate Partners

ESRI India Genesys International DataWorld International Federation of Surveyors I Geospatial Information & Technology Association I International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing I Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association I International CartographyAssociation I Open Geospatial Consortium Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India I Ministry of Information and Technology, Government of India I Survey of India I National Spatial Data Infrastructure I Chinese Academy of Surveying & Mapping, China I Geo Informatics and Space Technology Agency, Thailand I Military Survey Department, UAE I Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Saudi Arabia I Department of LandAffairs, Government of SouthAfrica International Trade Centre, The Netherlands I Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services ASM Magazine I Directions Media I Geo Informatics I GIM International I Vector 1 Media I Geo Connexion I

Government Co-Sponsors

Institutional Partners

Media Partners

Seminars
Coastal Zone Mapping for Disaster Management Institutional Partner United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs Affiliate Partner International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Land Administration Industry Partner Speck Systems Affiliate Partner International Federation of Surveyor Third Dimension to National Mapping Industry Partner Spatial Data Infrastructure Industry Partner Affiliate Partner Urban Development Industry Partner Utilities Industry Partner DigitalGlobe ERDAS Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Genesys International Infotech Enterprises

Sponsors

Symposiums
Geospatial for eGovernance Institutional Partner Co-Sponsor National Institute for Smart Government Ministry of Information and Technology, Government of India

Geospatial for Petroleum & Mining Symposium Affiliate Partner Geospatial Information & Technology Association Co - Sponsor Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India Official Journal DEW Journal Institutional Partner World Mining Congress Supporting Organisation Association of Petroleum Geologist Geospatial for Rural Development Affiliate Partner Media Partners National Institute for Rural Development i4D, eHealth

Forum
Education Forum Institutional Partner Media Partner University of Salzburg digital Learning

Summit
Location Summit 2.0 Platinum Sponsor Partner Industry Partner Associate Partner Media Partners Navteq SiRF Technology SatNav Technologies MobileIN.com I Telematics Update I Mind Commerce I Berg Insight I Direction Magazine