URISA's 4th Caribbean GIS Conference - Thursday, August 28, 2008

9:00 – 10:00 AM
Keynote Address
Vanessa Lawrence CB, Director General and Chief Executive, Ordnance Survey

Spatial Information: powering informed decision-making in an information-rich society

The information under-pinning decision-making is changing. All across the world, the value of ‘location’ is being recognised as a major contributor to enhancing the accuracy of decision-making. For generations, both the public and the private sector have used revenue, time and cost as basic building blocks on which to make decisions. Now the dimension of ‘location’ can be added to that list.
It is more than 150 years since a contaminated water pump was identified as the source of a major cholera outbreak in London, England. Dr John Snow illustrated the cause by plotting the locations of cholera deaths on a map which clearly showed a cluster among properties near the pump in Broad Street, Soho. It was an early example of spatial analysis supporting incident detection. However the concept of using location, universally as a key driver to decision-making, was overtaken by the use of financial analysis. It is only in the last five years that ‘location’ has become more widely used in decision-making.

Ordnance Survey is a household name in England, Scotland and Wales synonymous with mapping every corner of Great Britain. It is embedded within the digital information industry and plays a major part in underpinning decision-making in both the public and private sector in Great Britain.

In addition to traditional paper maps, Ordnance Survey provides definitive and intelligent digital geographic data, benefiting tens of millions of people every day. It is pervasive in crucial public sector activities such as locating suitable derelict sites for house building; planning new access to the countryside; controlling the flow of urban traffic; helping the police detect crime; identifying areas of deprivation and social exclusion; and locating public services more effectively. In the private sector, the uses are perhaps even wider, ranging from customer profiling; calculating insurance premiums for flood-risk properties; under-pinning in car navigation systems and many other mobile applications; to identifying pollution-prone sewers before they pollute.

Together with over 500 private sector partners, Ordnance Survey has taken a positive and proactive position in supporting the widespread adoption and maturing use of spatial information across all sectors of society. Ordnance Survey provides the national consistent maintained georeferencing and geodetic infrastructure for Great Britain. Ordnance Survey partners produce the software solutions that use the spatial information for decision-making.

Spatial information is now acknowledged in Great Britain as becoming increasingly important in today’s society. However, increased usage of spatial information requires users to now understand ‘the provenance of the content’ of that information upon which they are making key decisions; both in terms of how the content was collected, and is now stored and maintained. In Great Britain, the Government has recognised that spatial information is more than geographical information from the National Mapping Agency, Ordnance Survey. It is now recognised that many Departments of State and Local Government create and maintain spatial information and that a coordinated policy to drive increased understanding of the ‘content’ of the data is required. It is expected that this work will increase the power of informed decision-making in already information-rich public and private sector societies. An update on this work will be provided at the conference.

Biography: Vanessa is the first woman to head Great Britain's national mapping agency and one of the youngest Director Generals in Ordnance Survey’s 217-year history. She is a world-renowned expert in how geographic information systems (GIS) can improve decision making at all levels of government and business. She is the official adviser to the British Government on mapping, surveying and geographic information.

Vanessa received her business training from the publishing company Pearson plc and has extensive experience in running organisations in several continents. Before joining Ordnance Survey, she held senior positions at Autodesk Inc, the fourth largest PC software company in the world. This gave her the responsibility to position GIS strategically with major organisations such as Governments, the European Union, the World Bank, national mapping agencies, cadastral agencies and most importantly new customers world-wide who were not currently using geographic information for decision-making. During this time, Vanessa worked closely with the Chief Surveyor-General of South Africa to help create the ward structure for the country’s 1999 general election.

Beyond her work with Ordnance Survey, Vanessa is Chair of the United Kingdom ACE Association, the organisation representing Chief Executives of Government Agencies, Trading Funds and Non-Departmental Public Bodies on behalf of the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell. She also chairs a high-level group with membership drawn from the public and private sectors advising Ministers on using location information to improve decision-making in government.

Vanessa is a patron of two charities, The Cure Parkinson’s Trust and MapAction, a UK-based international charity which specialises in the mapping of disaster areas and supplying geographic information for humanitarian relief operations.

Vanessa is the Honorary Vice-President of The Geographical Association and a member of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society and of the University of Southampton. Vanessa is a Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton and Kingston University.

Vanessa is one of the few recipients of the Scottish Geographical Medal, a prestigious award conferred only occasionally since 1890 by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. In addition she has six Honorary Doctorate degrees and is an Honorary Fellow of University College London.

Vanessa was appointed as a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (CB) in the Queen’s 2008 New Year Honours list.

Vanessa lives in Surrey and enjoys scuba diving in many parts of the world, sailing her Solo dinghy at Rickmansworth Sailing Club, walking most weekends in the Surrey Hills with friends, collecting antique maps and playing tennis at the local tennis club.

Following Ms. Lawrence's presentation, a representative from Digicel (Emerald Sponsor of this conference) will provide some remarks.

10:00-10:30
Coffee Break in exhibit hall

10:30-12:00
Educational Sessions

Land, Environment, Planning and Natural Resources
Coastal and Marine Environment
Coastal and marine zones are of prime importance to the Caribbean and this session will look at mapping, evaluating and assessing their future at a country and regional scale.

Session Moderator: Steven Schill, The Nature Conservancy, Orem, Utah, USA

Disaster Management, Law Enforcement, Public Health and Safety
GIS-based Models for Disaster Management
During the last decade, there has been tremendous development in Modeling using GIS. This session will look at the use of GIS in Disaster modeling in the different islands of the Caribbean.

Session Moderator: Haroon Pandohie, Cayman Island Government, George Town, Cayman Islands

Standards, Policy and Management
The Building Blocks for a Successful GIS
With all of the discussion swirling around metadata and SDI, the need for a national spatial reference system (NSRS) is almost always overlooked. Yet many nations in the Caribbean are constrained due to an outdated NSRS that is out of step with modern GPS infrastructure and equipment. This session explores what can be done to implement a modern NSRS.

Session Moderator: Desmond Dougall, GISCAD Limited, Port of Spain, Trinidad And Tobago

Hot Topics
Enterprise GIS Systems and Their Profitability
Developing a successful Enterprise GIS is not an easy task and it certainly requires significant investment. This session examines how to put the right systems in place and how to leverage the same in order to generate self-sustaining revenue.

Session Moderator: Craig Batstone, GeoOrbis, St James, Barbados

12:00-1:00 PM
Sponsored lunch

1:30-3:00
Educational Sessions

Land, Environment, Planning and Natural Resources
Natural Resource Inventory and Management
Techniques for distinguishing natural resources, managing those resources using GIS and displaying them to managers will be discussed

Session Moderator: Steven Schill, The Nature Conservancy, Orem, Utah, USA

Disaster Management, Law Enforcement, Public Health and Safety
GIS for Disaster Preparedness & Post Disaster Reconstruction
This session argues for the need to benchmark disaster risk management efforts and provides examples on the use of GIS for vulnerability assessment and scenario modeling.  The session is geared to those who need to justify the investment in GIS technology as a tool for managing socio-economic development.

Session Moderator: Alan Mills, Alan Mills Consulting, UK

Standards, Policy and Management
Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)
SDI is being touted as the new “hot thing” in GIS. This session will explore ways in which SDI might work for the Caribbean and provides two examples of SDI projects underway in the region.

Hot Topics
Innovative Teaching: GIS in Schools
This session examines the role of GIS in improving students’ understanding of geographic concepts.

Session Moderator: James Barton, P.E, Chen and Associates, Fort Lauderdale, Florida USA

3:00-3:30
Break in exhibit hall

3:30-5:00
Educational Sessions

Land, Environment, Planning and Natural Resources
GIS Integration for Planning and Project Design
This session explores how emerging GIS technologies can be implemented in a variety of disciplines for both planning and project design. Case studies will be presented on how GIS is being integrated in agriculture extension programs as well as how the technology is being used to enhance project planning and design in the engineering and mining sectors. These case studies demonstrate how flexible GIS is for improving the speed, accuracy, and execution of projects in a variety of disciplines.

Session Moderator: Lisa Kay S. Lewis, GISP, National GIS Coordinator, Office of the Premier, Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Hot Topics & Disaster Management
Effective Web-Based Delivery of Geospatial Data
Web-based GIS is becoming increasing popular. This session will highlight disaster management applications and the role of the Internet in making these more effective. It will also discuss the delivery of geospatial information via the Web.

Session Moderator: Edsel Daniel, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Standards, Policy and Management
GIS Project Implementation
Effective planning and management of GIS projects is often overlooked, yet best practices have shown it is essential to a successful implementation. This session will explore these themes as well as present the experience from the USVI.

Hot Topics
Private Sector Advancements in the Use of GIS Data
GIS data is often used in products developed by the private sector. This session focuses on some important regional examples.

Session Moderator: Sean Rowe, Manchester Parish Council, Mandeville, Manchester, Jamaica

Experience Cayman Islands Finest
6:30 - 9:00 PM
(Leave Ritz at 5:45 PM)

Attendees will be transported via buses (provided by the National Roads Authority) to Pedro St. James , the National Historic Site of the Cayman Islands!

At a time in the Cayman Islands when most people lived in tiny, thatch-covered houses, a wealthy Englishman, created an astonishing 3-story building called Pedro St. James. In the 1990s, the Government of the Cayman Islands purchased Pedro St. James and painstakingly restored the Great House to the splendor of its 18th century heritage. Today, visitors can stroll through the imposing edifice with its period furniture and authentic artifacts to experience what life was like so long ago in Cayman’s history.

Highlights of this sure-to-be memorable event:

The evening is sponsored by the Ministry of District Administration, Planning, Agriculture and Housing and Cayman Land Info.

Event Poster

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