Successful UCs in Europe and Latin America Connect Regional Users

Registration Still Open for APUC in January

The Special Achievement in GIS Award was presented to the Mexican Geological Survey.

More than 2,400 users from 91 countries attended Esri regional user conferences (UC) in Mexico City and Rome in the last part of 2010. More will converge at the Asia Pacific User Conference (APUC) in January, Esri's first regional UC of 2011. "This is an exciting end to 2010 for our GIS users, and a great beginning to 2011," says Esri founder and president Jack Dangermond. "With ArcGIS realized as a fully integrated system, our users are able to more effectively collaborate within their fields and share that information with their peers throughout these regional user conferences."

2011 Esri Asia Pacific User Conference—Don't Miss the Event in January

Users in the Asia Pacific region still have time to register for the 2011 APUC, to be held January 26–27 at the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel in Manila, Philippines. Hosted by Geodata Systems Technologies, Inc., Esri's distributor in the Philippines, APUC will showcase the community collaborative aspect of the ArcGIS 10 system through the theme "One Community. One Map."

The first day of APUC will lead off with Dangermond, who will discuss the future of GIS and Esri. The Plenary Session will give attendees a look into new and exciting features of ArcGIS 10. Users from throughout the region will see maps contributed by their peers in the Map Gallery. More than 50 user maps are expected to be showcased at the event.

"We are looking forward to hosting users from across the Asia Pacific region in January," says Geodata executive vice president Francisca N. Dayrit. "The response we've seen for papers and submission of maps has been overwhelming, showing the level of excitement for this event. We hope that all users gain invaluable insights from the conference while enjoying the fantastic city of Manila."

There will be four technical tracks, each focused on a different aspect of GIS and ArcGIS. Tracks such as What's New, Web GIS, GIS Implementation, and Online GIS will give users an opportunity to personalize the content to what they specifically want to learn at APUC. There will also be industry tracks on disaster management, utilities, agriculture, transportation, and logistics. Sessions will be conducted by experts from Esri and Geodata.

Registration for the event is still available. Please visit esri.com/apuc by January 22 to register online. On-site registration will also be available at the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel.

2010 Latin America User Conference Wrap-up

The XVII Esri Latin America User Conference (LAUC) was held September 22–24 in Mexico City, Mexico. Hosted by Sistemas de Informaci�n Geogr�fica, S.A. (SIGSA), Esri's distributor in Mexico, this conference provided many opportunities for the more than 900 attendees from 16 Latin American countries to learn about GIS alongside their peers and industry leaders. This year's theme, "Geography Facing Social Challenges," was a perfect fit, bringing the practitioners and users of GIS data together to exchange information and experiences. Technical sessions, workshops, and presentations of more than 100 papers were well attended during the conference.

"[The LAUC was] a great way to keep updated about what is currently happening in the geomatics industry and also an opportunity to have a good time while networking and mingling with others. It was an amazing experience," says Roberto Z�rate from the Mexican Institute of Petroleum.

Federico Medevilla from the Mexican Railway Systems says, "The integration and new features of ArcGIS 10 and ArcGIS Server were the most interesting. Congratulations to SIGSA for a spectacular event."

The 2010 LAUC Special Achievement in GIS Awards were granted to users from eight different Latin American countries. They included honorable mentions from the Department of Cadastral Information System, Government of the State of Morelos (Mexico); Engineering, Information and Technology CA (Venezuela); the Mexican Geological Survey; Ministry of Education (Chile); Ministry of Environment (Peru); Municipality of Escaz� (Costa Rica); National Federation of Coffee Growers (Colombia); Tourism Authority (Panama); and YPFB Chaco SA (Bolivia).

A GIS in Education Conference under the cosponsorship of the Latin America Society for Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Systems; Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education; National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Pan-American Institute of Geography and History; UNIGIS; and University of Talca, Chile, was also held in advance of the Esri Latin America User Conference; such topics as teaching GIS in different levels of education and discussing contemporary issues in the field of education were presented, and a number of demonstrations were given. This conference brought together educators and students from renowned universities throughout Latin America.

"The conference was brilliant," says UNAM geography student Sandra Itzel L�pez. "I met many important people, [and it was] an excellent opportunity to learn about how the benefits of technology improve the quality of our lives."

For more postconference information, visit www.sigsa.info/lauc2010. The 2011 LAUC will be held September 28–30 at the Hotel Real Intercontinental in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Europe, Middle East, and Africa User Conference Wrap-up

The 2010 Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) User Conference was held October 26–28 in Rome, Italy. This conference brought together 1,500 users from 75 countries throughout the region, from Iceland to South Africa. The conference was hosted by ESRI Italia S.p.A., Esri's distributor in Italy.

"I think that the conference was a big success," says Bruno Ratti, president of ESRI Italia S.p.A. "It brought people together from many nations and gave them an opportunity to exchange their experiences with GIS in their daily jobs."

The opening plenary consisted of presentations from Chris Steenmans of the European Environmental Agency and Daniel Eriksson of the Geneva Center for Humanitarian De-mining and demos of the latest in ArcGIS 10. Before Jack Dangermond started his keynote presentation at the plenary, he was awarded the Premio Mondo d'oro (Lifetime Achievement Award) by the GeoKnowledge Foundation chaired by Professor Rodolfo Guzzi.

The technical workshops proved to be very successful, with standing room only for many of the hot topics. Most of the technical sessions are available online at esri.com/events/emea.

More than 550 people attended the gala party, which took place in the magical, but cool, surroundings of the Villa Medici on top of the famous Spanish Steps. One of the highlights of the evening was the cutting of an enormous cake to celebrate the 20th anniversary of ESRI Italia S.p.A.

For post-event information about the 2010 EMEA UC, visit esri.com/events/emea. The 2011 Esri European User Conference will be held October 26–28 at the North Convention Center, IFEMA, Feria de Madrid, in Madrid, Spain. The 2011 Esri Middle East and Africa User Conference will be held November 1–3 at the Habtoor Grand Hotel in Beirut, Lebanon.