Pune, Jan 19, 2000

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), will be hosting the Annual Convention and Conference of the Indian Society of Geomatics (ISG), at Pune during Jan 21 and 22, 2000. The theme of the conference is 'Geomatics in Electronic Governance'.

The conference will be inaugurated by Dr. N. Seshagiri, Special Secretary and Director General of the National Informatics Centre at 9.30 AM on January 21, 2000 at the IUCAA auditorium, Pune University Campus. Shri. A. K. S. Gopalan, Director Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad will deliver the Keynote address.

The conference will examine all aspects of Geomatics related to electronic governance and will be addressed by eminent persons who have been invited to deliver lead talks.

The conference aims at providing a forum for professionals, researchers, engineers, government officials and industry to interact and understand the various dimensions of the issues involved in the area of Geomatics.

The conference will address themes on Application of Geomatics, training and education in Geomatics, and systems and technology trends covering data warehousing, data mining, Internet and intranet.

Public administration has seen a fundamental shift in the manner in which the country is harnessing recent advances in information technology to drive its services. Initiatives by the Central and State Government institutions to introduce computerization in their operations are expected to usher in a more affordable, responsive, transparent and environment friendly governance. These new practices adopted by the administration for the delivery of information technology products and services on the Internet and intranet, constitute the concept of Electronic Governance.

Geomatics is the synergy of multiple disciplines, namely, GIS, GPS, remote sensing, cartography, database, and other geo-related sciences. Geomatics has emerged as a discipline dealing with spatial and non-spatial information, its methods of acquisition, analogue and digital capture, organization, classification and qualification, analysis, and dissemination, as well as the infrastructure necessary for the optimal use of the information. Applications of Geomatics are mainly oriented to the real world problems of management of natural and manmade environment and of the objects and information related to it and has thus emerged as a key subject of electronic Governance.

A Geomatics exhibition scheduled during the conference will enable, vendors and manufacturers of software and hardware related to GIS, remote sensing, photogrammetry, cartography as well as the various agencies working in allied fields to showcase their products and services. The exhibition will be open to both, the delegates and the general public.

A special session on Industry presentations has been planned on January 21, 2000 to provide a platform to the industry to highlight their products and services.