Conference Program - Thursday Highlights
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Awards Breakfast
URISA honored outstanding members of the community along with the winners of the Exemplary Systems in Government (ESIG) Awards and Student Competition winners during the Thursday Awards Breakfast (sponsored by CDM).
Dianne Haley, Chair of the ESIG Review Committee, started out the awards presentation by summarizing the systems being recognized this year.
ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS CATEGORY - Systems in this category are outstanding and working examples of using information systems technology in a multi-department environment as part of an integrated process. These systems exemplify effective use of technology yielding widespread improvements in the process(es) and/or service(s) involved and/or cost savings to the organization.
- 2010 ESIG Winner: OneMap - A Multi-Agency Window for Geospatial Information and Service Delivery – Singapore Land Authority
Submitted by: Lim Ming Khai, Head, GeoSpatial Operations & Development, GeoSpatial Division, Singapore Land Authority
- Distinguished System in this Category: City IQ - City of Bellingham, WA
Submitted by: Don Burdick, GIS & Technical Services Manager, City of Bellingham, WA
SINGLE PROCESS SYSTEMS CATEGORY - Systems in this category are outstanding and working examples of applying information system technology to automate a specific SINGLE process or operation involving one department or sub-unit of an agency. The system application results in extended and/or improved government services that are more efficient and/or save money.
- 2010 ESIG Winner: Situational Awareness for Field Operations Support System - New York City Office of Emergency Management
Submitted by: Hassan Adekoya, GISP, GIS Application Development Project Manager, NYC Office of Emergency Management
Kathrine Cargo congratulates Hassan Adekoya
- Distinguished System in this Category: Pierce County GIS Online Budget System - County of Pierce, WA
Submitted by: Art Seeley, GISP, Interim GIS Manager, County of Pierce
To learn more about these exceptional systems, click here.
2010 STUDENT COMPETITION - URISA seeks to encourage students in a variety of academic settings and disciplines to write and publish papers and projects for the URISA membership and others in the spatial technologies industry. We were pleased to recognize the exceptional submissions in this year's competition which featured three tiers: Papers, Presentations and Posters.
Graduate Student Paper Category –
- First Place: Spatial Decompositions for Gravity and Shortest Path for Set Covering for Measuring Potential Accessibility to Emergency Service
Submitted by: EunSu Lee - North Dakota State University
- Second Place: Geographic Characteristics of Resettled Refugee Populations in Worcester, MA, FFY09
Submitted by: Nicholas Cuba - Clark University - Graduate School of Geography - Third Place: Medical Services and Urban Traffic in Republican Beijing in Historical GIS Perspective: Between East and West
Submitted by: Peiyao ZHANG - The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Undergraduate Student Presentation Category –
- First Place: A Quantitative Assessment of 2 and 4 feet Sea Level Rise on the Broward County, FL Landuse Using GIS
Submitted by: Ugur Dagkilic - Florida Atlantic University
Cargo, Dagkilic
- Second Place: Improving Access to Public Data with Open-Source Technology
Submitted by: Joe Tricarico - Rutgers University
Poster Category:
- Winning Submission: Simulating a Tsunami Pedestrian Evacuation from Seaside, Oregon
Submitted by: Lesley Bross and Jiunn-Der (Geoffrey) Duh - Geography, Portland State University
To learn more about the student competition and review the winning submissions, click here.
Tricarico, Dagkilic, Cargo and Lee
URISA's GIS HALL OF FAME - This year's inductee into the Hall of Fame was Dr. C. Dana Tomlin, who was recognized for his immense contributions to the field of GIS through the development and implementation of Map Algebra. Dr. Tomlin was nominated and introduced by Robert Cheetham. You are encouraged to learn more about Dr. Tomlin's contributions and those of other inductees!
More URISA AWARDS
Leadership Award - Presented to members who have demonstrated exemplary leadership to URISA, creativity, innovation, and dedicated support of URISA programs. This year’s Leadership Award recipient was Geney Terry, GISP.
Service Award - Presented to members who have demonstrated faithful service to URISA and participation in its programs over a period of several years. Mark Sievers and Karen Brandt are the recipients of 2010 URISA Service Awards.
Sievers, Cargo
Barbara Hirsch Special Service Award - Presented to members or staff who have made special contributions to URISA. This award was created (in 2004) to honor URISA’s former Chief Financial Officer, Barbara Hirsch. This award is given to individuals or committees who have shown a consummate level of service to URISA through an ongoing commitment to our success as an organization.
The 2010 Barbara Hirsch Special Service Award was awarded to Michael Lovett, GISP.
Lovett, Cargo
Outstanding Chapter Award - Each year, URISA recognizes an outstanding Chapter that has sponsored particularly effective activities or has otherwise excelled in serving its membership. Outstanding Chapter Award criteria include:
- Innovation
- Outreach
- Education
- Community Impact
The winner of the 2010 Outstanding Chapter Award was the URISA Oregon Chapter. Top contenders for the award this year were the Ohio, Georgia, and Ontario Chapters. Congratulations on your accomplishments!
We then had a presentation from URISA's GISCorps, a program that coordinates short term volunteer GIS services to underserved communities worldwide. Since its inception in October 2003, the Corps has attracted 100’s of volunteers from over 77 countries. To date, GISCorps has deployed 183 volunteers to 61 missions. These volunteers have contributed over 7,600 working hours in disaster and non disaster response missions in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa.
The presentation included an overview of missions that were implemented in the past 12 months followed by a brief presentation by Dr. Michelle Thompson on a GISCorps project in New Orleans. We all love GISCorps!
Heather Milton, Mark Salling, Shoreh Elhami, Michelle Thompson, Allen Ibaugh, Dianne Haley
Education
Dozens of important breakout sessions filled the day on topics including:
- GIS as a Factor in Standard of Care Decisions
- Standards Development for Improved Data Quality and Sharing
- GIS ROI: Measurement Tools You Can Use!
- The Many Faces of “Free” GIS
Industry Thought Leaders
A definite highlight of the conference was the Industry Thought Leaders' Panel Discussion which brought together a well-respected group of individuals to talk about trends and hot topics:
- Ossama Alami, Geo Developer Relations Manager, Google Maps and Earth
- Steve Kinzy, GISP, Regional Manager, Esri
- Joel Campbell, President, ERDAS
- Rob Culp, Public Sector, Solutions Manager, IBM Global Business Services
- Tim Henderson, Business Development Manager, Microsoft Bing Maps for Enterprise
- Xavier Lopez, Director of Product Management, Oracle Spatial Products Group
- Geoff Zeiss, Director of Technology, Autodesk
Mark Salling questions the panel.
Quite the lineup and discussion!
Conference Social Event
What a blast! Beautiful weather, great conversation, wonderful entertainment, food and beverage combined to make this year's conference social event one to remember. A huge thank you to Data Transfer Solutions for their generous sponsorship of the event and for sharing their amazing talents with us! Forbidden 403 rocked!
(Rumor has it that they'll make a repeat appearance next year in Indy!)
Click here for a lot of photos from the social event!
