6th Caribbean GIS Conference

The 6th URISA Caribbean GIS Conference will take place on 12-16 Nov, 2012 at the Hilton Rose Hall in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The 2012 event is themed "Spatial Technologies - Critical Thinking for Critical Times". The deadline for responding to the Call for Presentations is 2 April, 2012.

Fugro Career Opportunity Visit to Puerto Rico February 8, 2012

Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, San Juan Campus
Presentations & Interviews February 8th
Contact: Professor Marisol Rodríguez

Come out and meet:
Kevin Spain – Human Resources - Fugro Companies
Vanessa I. Torres-Mendoza, - S.I.T Survey Analyst
John Chance Land Surveys, Inc. 
Pedro J. Báez-Rivera - Offshore Survey Technician
Fugro Chance, Inc. 

All interviews and presentations will be held in English. This opportunity is open to students, alumni and professionals. Please call 787-622-8000 x 377 for details and reservations.

www.fugro.com

Tsunami Warning

The MetEd program of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) located in Boulder, Colorado has just released the 2nd edition of the online training module Community Tsunami Preparedness. This module is designed to help emergency managers prepare their communities for tsunamis. MetEd also provides training modules on Emergency Management, Tropical Meteorology, Numerical Modelling, etc.. All the MetEd courses are free. A great resource. Thanks Bruce.

GEYSED

The GEYSED (Geoinformatics and Digital Signals) Development Center, from the University of Information Sciences (UCI) in Cuba invites professors, students, specialists and researchers in the field of Geoinformatics to participate in the First Geoinformatics Workshop, inside the VI Scientific Conference UCIENCIA 2012, on Feb 20-22, 2012 in Havana, Cuba. Scope: To congregate institutions and professionals that research in the field related to the application of computers to earth sciences, to socialize, learn, establish cooperation and for multilateral exchange. Topics: Algorithms and techniques for processing geographical information, Applied geoinformatics, Cartography and Spatial Databases, Geoinformatics and Education, Spatial Data Infrastructure, Geographical Information Systems. Thanks Kate.

One for the Little Guy

Came across this inspiring account of a dedicated individual winning the Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS) Best of Show Award for 2010. The CaGIS competition is open only to North American mapmakers but it is still very motivating for all mappers to see that a single professional can produce quality work that ranks alongside that of the well-endowed NGS or US Government agencies. Thanks Bruce.

Carneval de GIS

The 7th International Conference on Geographical Analysis, Urban Modeling & Spatial Statistics GEOG-AN-MOD 12 will be held on June 18th - 20th, 2012 at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. The conference will be conducted in English, and papers are requested on various related themes; for peer-review and publication.The organisers write that "nowadays the wide diffusion of electronic devices containing geo-referenced information generates a great production of spatial data ... creating an overabundance of spatial data, which, in many cases, does not help the efficiency of decision processes. This workshop aims at contributing to the development of new techniques and methods to improve the process of knowledge acquisition". Important dates are:
31 January 2012: Deadline for full paper submission
10 March  2012: Notification of acceptance
5 April 2012: Deadline for Camera Ready Papers
June 18-21, 2012: ICCSA 2012 Conference

Thanks Bruce, Kate.

Let's Go Dutch

The Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA) has made available a GIS User Manual that guides nature managers step by step through relevant GIS skills whilst using their own data in ArcGIS and Google Earth Pro. The DCNA has now trained 16 persons in GIS from Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Maarten. It found that one of the biggest concerns in terms of GIS use is the lack of access to reliable and usable data - which sounds rather familiar. However, they've had their own GIS expert and many other persons have a go at this problem and so now the DCNA also offers a set of GIS data for the six islands. If interested you'd have to contact the DCNA but one can already find their training materials online (in English). I haven't seen either the Manual or data myself, but I like the sound of this initiative. Lekker. Thanks Kate.