Asia Pacific User Conference—"One Community, One Map"
The Manila Water Company accepting the Special Achievement Award. From left: Rommel Gumapas; Mauricio "Mauch" Franco, Jr.; Director Abelardo Basilio; Romel Cari�o; Rosie Cailao; Amy Pineda; Jack Dangermond; Joy Santiago; Susan Pablo; Edgar Santos; Dem Espiritu.
More than 640 users from the Asia-Pacific region descended on Manila, Philippines, January 26–27 for the 2011 Esri Asia Pacific User Conference (APUC). Hosted by Geodata Systems Technologies, Inc., Esri's international distributor for the Philippines, the conference drew users from 10 countries in the region: Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, and Singapore.
Esri founder and president Jack Dangermond delivered the keynote speech, in which he called for users to collaborate. Dangermond emphasized that the vision of "One Community, One Map" is the idea that geospatial information becomes pervasive and helps everyone in society do a better job.
"We were thrilled to see so many users from so many countries in the Asia-Pacific region sharing and collaborating at APUC," says Francisca N. Dayrit, Geodata executive vice president. "Thank you to all the attendees for making this event such a success."
The Manila Water Company was the recipient of the Special Achievement Award for Excellence in Enterprise GIS Implementation after successfully driving solutions in which the Esri GIS platform is one of the major technologies for its water supply management, pressure monitoring, nonrevenue water monitoring, asset management, and investment prioritization.
According to engineer Abelardo Basilio, director of East Zone Business Operations, Manila Water was able to reduce nonrevenue water from 63 percent in 1997 to 10 percent in 2010. With Esri GIS as the platform, the water utility shares information with different departments, and today, as many as 200 users have access to the system. These users perform data integration, planning, analyses, and decision making.
Users throughout the region embraced the theme of "One Community, One Map," as more than 25 maps were showcased in the Map Gallery.
Technical workshops and presentations are available online at the Geodata website.
Upcoming Conferences
The 2011 European User Conference will be held October 26–28 at the North Convention Center, IFEMA, Feria de Madrid, in Madrid, Spain; the 2011 Middle East and Africa User Conference will be held November 1–3 at the Habtoor Grand Hotel in Beirut, Lebanon. Finally, the 2011 Latin America User Conference will be held September 28–30 at the Hotel Real Intercontinental in San Jose, Costa Rica. Visit esri.com/events for more information.
