News in 2015
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Report from FIG Working Week, Sofia, Bulgaria, May 2015
FIG Working Week 2015 was held 17-21 May 2015 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The
Working Week took place in the National Palace of Culture - the very
same place as the FIG Permanent Committee Meeting in 1983, however at
that time under very different conditions. For some participants the
venue was a reunion – however much had changed since then both in
Bulgaria and in FIG. Professor and FIG Honorary Member Georgi Milev,
Bulgarian Union of Surveyors, was main organiser in 1983, and as a
faithful FIG participant, he was also attending this years Working Week.
At the Opening Ceremony FIG President recognised his presence, and
Georgi Milev reminded the President that actually Sofia also hosted the
1964 Permanent Committee Meeting.
Bulgarian dancers at the opening
ceremony |
The facade of the National Palace of Culture |
The Local organisers of the FIG Working Week 2015 were the
Bulgarian Chamber of Surveyors who had done their utmost to create
the conditions for a successful Working Week. The Working Week
attracted around 900 participants from 70 countries, and altogether
more than 320 papers were presented in 3 Plenary Sessions, 67
Technical Sessions, 5 Joint UN-Habitat/GLTN-FIG sessions, and a one
day joint UN-Habitat/GLTN-FIG Workshops. Again this year the largest
group of participants came from Nigeria - thank you for this
continuous support to FIG.
Opening Ceremony
The President opened the Working Week 2015 with the traditional FIG
Fanfare and commented that the very first time the FIG Fanfare was
played was in the exact same place in 1983. Now 32 years later FIG
proved to be as vivid as ever. At the Opening Ceremony President Potsiou
introduced the FIG Work Plan in detail. She elaborated over the FIG
Theme for the term 2015-18: Ensuring the Rapid Response to Change,
Ensuring the Surveyor of Tomorrow. Mr. Angel Krumov Yanakiev,
President of the Chamber of Graduated Surveyors, Bulgaria welcomed all
participants to Sofia, Bulgaria, whereafter Ms. Lilyana Pavlova,
Minister of Regional Development and Public Works was scheduled to give
her opening address. Her Deputy Minister Mr. Nikolay Nankov, was present
because the Minister had got a last minute commitment. They had however
organised a video in which Ms. Lilyana Pavlova gave her opening address
to the Working Week. Further speakers were Ms. Yordanka Fandakova, Mayor
of Sofia Municipality, Mr. Svetoslav Nakov, Director of the Agency of
Geod esy Cartography and Cadastre, and finally Co-Congress Director
Zlatan Zlatanov who also welcomed all the participants to Sofia and to
the FIG Working Week.
Plenary sessions
During the Working Week one plenary session was organised each
morning. The plenary sessions were built over the overall focus of FIG
Council for the term and focused on the Surveyors’ Response to Changing
the City Management, to Pro-Growth Land Management and to Global and
Regional Professional and Institutional Reforms. Among the
speakers were Prof. em. Dr. Armin Gruen, Federal Institute of Technology
(ETH) Zurich who spoke about the next generation of SMART cities and the
role of geomatics. A series of new tools is available for documentation,
analysis and dissemination of environment. A multi-sensor,
multi-resolution approach helps in getting results of better quality,
completeness and higher level of automation, and new concepts for 3D
mapping/modelling are required – this is about crowd-sourcing, Big Data,
data mining, cloud computing. 2015-2016 is the International Map Year,
and Georg Gardner, President of ICA, talked about the importance of maps
now and in the future hereunder with the use of 3D and 4D. It is
necessary to promote Information Advocacy and Awareness from a
data-centric ‘provider’ focus to a knowledge enabled ‘user’ focus and to
find a future direction of data creation, maintenance and management as
well as the use of big data. Trends in technology include that sensors
will be pervasive, data increasingly interconnected and there will be
emerging relevance of providing relevant data.
Daniel Roberge World Bank, talked about driving forces shaping the
land agenda are growing prosperity, urbanization, food production,
rising demand for land and climate change. Accurate location of land,
people and resources is needed. This requires transparent and inclusive
institutions. Cadastral infrastructure is essential to deal with these
challenges. Dr. Clarissa Agustinus, Global Land Tool Network,
UN-Habitat, highlighted the need for land administration reform for pro
growth land management and Dr. Ionut Savoiu, Member of Parliament in
Romania talked about the challenging role of surveyors in the land
management issues related to growing economies. Land consolidation was
one of the key issues.
Bengt Kjellson focused on Global Geospatial Information Management
from a global and a regional perspective and the importance that UN-GGIM
has decided to form regional bodies. UN-GGIM is a global initiative and
the role of UN-GGIM is to make accurate, reliable and authoritative
geospatial information readily available to support national, regional
and global development. It is however also important to be able to act
on a regional level and the aim of UN-GGIM-Europe is to identify
European issues relevant to geospatial information management and
recommend necessary actions on them and to ensure that the national
mapping and cadastral authorities and national statistical institutes in
the European UN Member States, the European Institutions and associated
bodies work together to contribute to the more effective management and
availability of geospatial information in Europe, and its integration
with other information, based on user needs and requirements.
Plenary session 1 - Armin Gruen, FIG Vice President Rudolf
Staiger chaired the meeting, Valentina Bakalova andGeorg Gartner
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Plenary session 2 - Far left chair of the session FIG Vice
President Pengfei Cheng, FIG President Chryssy Potsiou, Daniel
Roberge, Clarissa Augustinus and Ionut Savoiu |
Plenary Session 3 - Chair of the session Vice President Diane
Dumashie, Bengt Kjellson, Maurice Barbieri and Todor Kostadinov |
Clarissa Augustinus, UN-Habitat is honored by FIG President
Chryssy Potsiou for her long term and outstanding work in
cooperation with FIG |
FIG Honorary Ambassador
At the second plenary session Clarissa Augustinus was scheduled to
talk about the work of the Global Land Tool Network, but before her
speech, FIG President Potsiou took the scene and announced that FIG and
FIG Council wanted to honour Clarissa Augustinus for her work and
cooperation with FIG throughout many years. Clarissa Augustinus is
founder and Lead on the Global Land Tool Network and has worked closely
with FIG through her position in UN-Habitat and since the establishment
of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN). The FIG Council acknowledged the
longstanding cooperation with her that has lasted throughout many
councils and FIG presidents, and President Potsiou presented Clarissa
Augustinus with a framed certificate with the appreciation as “FIG
Honorary Ambassador”. This is the first time this honour is given.
Clarissa Augustinus is in June 2015 standing down from UN-HABITAT.
Highlights
The colleagues of the chamber of Graduated Surveyors in Bulgaria
together with the FIG Council, ten FIG Commission and the FIG Office
organised an attractive programme with around 320 presentations
throughout the three conference days.
Under the theme “From Wisdom of the Ages to Challenges of the Modern
World” the latest innovations and developments were discussed. The
Working Week took place short time after the dramatic earth quake in
Nepal and surrounding countries, which meant that the impact of an earth
quake got very visible and meant that the challenges for surveyors of
the measurement of our planet were in focus. Insitu scanners achieve a
greater precision. Vertical and horizontal reference frames develop to a
global level as foundation for global data infrastructures. At local
level the crowdsourcing and public involvement is subject of debate:
what is the role of the professional in the future when easy to use and
hand held measurement devices will be more and more available? In any
case participation will increase and will support substantially in the
development of land administration world wide – including the marine
environment. 3D Modelling for cadastre is under development. Ethics in
relation to our profession is also under continuous attention.
Proceedings are available at:
http://www.fig.net/resources/proceedings/fig_proceedings/fig2015/techprog.htm
Participants at a session |
Some sessions grew out of their rooms... |
Young Surveyors working on Mapping for Nepal" on their computers |
Co-Conference Director Zlatan Zlatanov |
The Director General Forum for FIG Affiliate members chose to
sit in a cirle in stead of the traditional seating |
Special exhbition on maps to celebrate the Year of Maps 2015-16
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President Potsiou and Dr. Wang Qian,
Deputy Secretary General, Chinese
Society for Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation signing
the MoU
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From left Louise Friis-Hansen, FIG Manager, Dr. Wang Qian, Deputy Secretary General,
Chinese Society for Surveying,, FIG
President Chryssy Potsiou and FIG Vice President Pengfei Cheng
who is the initiator.
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Memorandum of Understanding
During the FIG Working Week FIG President Potsiou signed a Memorandum
of Understanding with the Chinese Society for Surveying, Mapping and
Geoinformation (GSSMG). GSSMG has offered a special support to FIG and
especially FIG Office with a three year exchange programme where Chinese
surveyors will be working in the FIG Office for half a year at a time.
Mapping for Nepal
The FIG Young Surveyors Network organised a ‘Mapping response -
contributions for Nepal’. Participants joined with their laptops to the
already established Open Street Map (OSM) initiative to map for Nepal.
The Young Surveyors organised hand on sessions on the Social Tenure
Domain Model – this software has been used already in disaster
environment during the Ebola crises. Disaster recovery is one of the key
areas of attention within FIG.
Bitcoins
The Young Surveyors seem to look at the developments on crowdsourcing
with a somewhat different and more natural attitude than older
colleagues. The Network organised its own event and some nice workshops
during the Working Week. There was a debate on the use of blockchains
(bitcoin technology) for land administration: a complete transparent
approach where everyone can see all transactions. Just after the Working
Week in Sofia the cadastre from Honduras announced the use of this
technology as the first country.
At the opening Ceremony at FIG Young Surveyors European Meeting
3rd FIG Young Surveyors European Meeting 16 May 2015
The Young Surveyors Meeting was held at the University of
Architecture, department of Civil Engineering and Geodesy. FIG President
Chryssy Potsiou attended the opening and welcomed everyone to Sofia and
to the Working Week. She stated that it was important for FIG that there
are active young surveyors to bring FIG further. After the opening
President Potsiou had very good talks with several of the participants.
FIG Vice Presidents Pengfei Cheng and Rudolf Staiger also attended the
opening of the meeting. The Young Surveyors had put together a very
interesting programme where among other things the question was raised:
How do you see our profession in 10 years from now?
Report
from the Young Surveyors Meeting
Commission meetings
The 10 FIG commissions as well as the networks, permanent
institutions and task forces have worked intensely to create the
technical programme of the Working Week. Without the work of all these
active people FIG would be nothing. To inform about their work and to
inspire participants to get more active in the work of the commissions,
the 10 FIG Commissions held a one-hour meeting during the Working Week
for all interested to discuss the development of the commission and the
work that is going on. Hereto all commissions had organised to meet
informally for a commission dinner in the evening of 19 May. These
dinners were quite well visited and the atmosphere was in top.
Exhibition
The exhibition attracted many participants of the Working Week.
Instruments were tried out, there were discussions with vendors, and
there was a lively exchange both in the coffee and lunch breaks that
took place in the exhibition area and also more in-depth talks during
the sessions. A big thanks to the two Platinum Sponsors, ESRI and
Trimble, the Silver Sponsor Leica, GEOCAD-93 as Primary Local Sponsor
and to all the exhibitors. Gold Media partners were GIM International,
GeoConnexion and Geomedia Bulgaria and Silver Media partner was Maney
Publishing.
FIG Foundation
FIG Foundation had sponsored the participation of 11 Young Surveyors
to participate in both the 3rd European Young Surveyors Meeting and the
Working Week. The eleven Young Surveyors came from Albania, Denmark,
Greece (2), Malaysia (2), Moldova, Nigeria, Serbia (2) and Uruguay. The
lucky winners of the grants were found via a selection process carried
through by Young Surveyors and the Foundation from the 91 received
applications. For the selected Young Surveyors it was a great
opportunity to attend the Working Week and to get to know more about the
international work that is going on as well as getting inspiration and a
very good international network.
Social events
The Bulgarian organisers had done a great job to make sure that the
Working Week was memorable for all participants and also managed to
showcase the best of Sofia/Bulgaria. The Welcome Reception on 17 May in
the evening took place in the National Museum of History, which is a
very spectacular and large place – a former governmental residence.
Currently it stores and owns over 650,000 objects connected to
archaeology, fine arts, history and ethnography. As the same time as
meeting fellow participants, it was possible to walk around in this
extraordinary building and see the exhibition, and in this way learn
more about the impressive 1300 year history of Bulgaria. The Quartet
“Strings” entertained during the evening on spectacular string
instruments.
At the Welcome Reception |
Listeners to the music
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On Monday 18 May the day ended with the Bulgarian evening which is
also FIG Foundation Dinner. Traditionally Trimble played a big role in
the dinner and had donated a sum to the FIG Foundation. The dinner was
held at the Vodenitsata restaurant, which was located idyllically in the
mountains outside Sofia and was a traditional Bulgarian restaurant. All
participants were met with bread and spices at the entrance – a special
Bulgarian greeting. The Folklore group “Vodenitsata” entertained during
the evening both with dance, music and song. The dinner consisted of
traditional Bulgarian dishes hereunder wonderful fresh local vegetables.
The following entertainment waited until it was dark enough outside,
where NESTINARI waited. This attraction consists of fire dancing - so
called “walking on coals with bare feet”. This tradition/dance was born
even before Christ as a pagan ritual performed from the ancient
Thracians. With the dancing on the coals, they fall in trance, they met
the coming summer, glorify the name of the Sun God who carried with him
the fire and they asked him to give them health, success and
fruitfulness through the year. The superstition is that the fire which
burns pursued the ghosts, deceases and misfortune, purifies and absolves
the sins of the present people at the ritual and makes them stronger and
calmer. The fire dancers carry on their hands over the coals sick people
to cure them, children and young people for long living.
A Bulgarian tradition is to welcome guests with bread and spices |
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Tuesday 19 May was reserved for commission dinners and all who were
interested in a commission could join. Most dinners were very well
visited.
The Gala Dinner on 20 May marked the end of the conference part of
the Working Week. Only the Presidents meeting and 2nd General Assembly
session with the closing was left for the following day. And the
participants partied through the dinner at the Kempinski Hotel Ballroom.
There was a high African and Nigerian participation which caused the
evening to be even livelier. The Young Surveyors, however, lead the way
dancing to the first performer, the singer Georgi Dulgerov. Later in the
evening Trio Grande Tenori entertained with a true Tenor programme of
both classical and more modern songs for Tenors. The third singer Teddy
Katzarova had hardly sung the beginning of the first song when several
participants could not resist dancing to the rhythmic music. Shortly
after almost all at the dinner danced around the tables and around the
surprised singer. Seldom have so many surveyors been so active on a
dance floor. After the dinner there was a DJ party for the long lasting
participants.
The young surveyors who received a Foundation grant |
President of Bulgarian Chamber of Surveyors Angel Yanakiev and
FIG President Potsiou greeting all guests |
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In general the social events were very well organised and showed the
very best of the Bulgarian culture.
Conclusion
At the Closing Ceremony FIG President Potsiou said: ‘FIG has a
long-term commitment to support the global campaign for security of
tenure for all and will endeavour to solve these land issues through
partnerships. FIG, as a recognised NGO, will work closely with the
global family of UN organisations to support solutions to the 21st
century global challenges of climate change, food security, social
justice, and urbanisation.’
The ambitions of the new FIG President Potsiou and FIG Council are
clear: FIG has a long-term commitment to the global agenda. The Working
Week in Sofia, Bulgaria, was her first and successful performance to the
FIG community. She underlined that FIG will work with its Member
Associations to support the implementation of UN FAO’s ‘Voluntary
Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries
and Forests in the Context of National Food Security’ and UN Habitat’s
‘Continuum of Land Rights’ at the country level. FIG will work with
UN-GGIM in its mandate to include Land Administration activities into
the domain of global information management.
Scalability of security of tenure solutions will involve the use of a
network of grass root surveyors from the communities. FIG will embrace
and manage the change to encourage the use of innovative, scalable
approaches to recording and securing land rights, including informal and
customary rights. This will include Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration
and Property Valuation Solutions. Apart from the local level FIG
supports the ideas for the development of a new generation of Global
Surveyors working at the local level. Global Surveyors are aware of the
global issues and contribute solutions to the global agenda. Global
Surveyors should be able to identify, initiate and foster research and
develop a clear professional and scientific vision.
A big thanks to first of all the local organisers who had worked hard
on the success of the Working Week and to the company Company for
International Congresses Ltd. for their comptent assistance both before
and during the Working Week.
The Working Week was supported by platinum sponsors Esri and Trimble and
silver sponsor Leica.
More information:
Finally - thanks to all the participants to took the long trip to
Sofia Bulgaria, a very special thanks to the Local organisers, and
see you in:
Louise Friis-Hansen
17 June 2016
