Welcome to the International Cartographic Association
Welcome to the website of the International Cartographic AssociationGet to know the new ICA Executive Committee for the term 2023-2027
Welcome to the website of the International Cartographic Association
Get to know the new ICA Executive Committee for the term 2023-2027

Obituary: Godfried Theodore Toussaint

Portrait Godfried Theodore Toussaint (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia)

Godfried Theodore Toussaint

It is with great sadness that we share the news that Godfried Theodore Toussaint passed away while sharing his work at the International Cartographic Conference 2019 in Tokyo. He attended ICC2019 to present his work on “The Levenshtein distance as a measure of mirror symmetry and homogeneity for binary digital patterns” in a special session titled “Design & Computation in Geovisualization” convened by the Commission on Visual Analytics.

Godfried Theodore Patrick Toussaint (1944–2019) was a Canadian Computer Scientist, a Professor of Computer Science, and the Head of the Computer Science Program at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He was considered to be the father of computational geometry in Canada. He did research on various aspects of computational geometry, discrete geometry, and their applications: pattern recognition (k-nearest neighbor algorithm, cluster analysis), motion planning, visualization (computer graphics), knot theory (stuck unknot problem), linkage (mechanical) reconfiguration, the art gallery problem, polygon triangulation, the largest empty circle problem, unimodality (unimodal function), and others. Other interests include meander (art), compass and straightedge constructions, instance-based learning, music information retrieval, and computational music theory.

 

Information about the 2019 ICC and General Assembly

We invite you to the 29th International Cartographic Conference (ICC) and to the 18th General Assembly of the International Cartographic Association. The conference will be held in Tokyo, Japan, from 15 to 20 July 2019, and all those active in cartography and geographic information sciences in your country are warmly invited to participate. In addition, the 18th General Assembly of the ICA will take place at the same venue.

We are looking forward to celebrating this unique event of Mapping Everything for Everyone, something which is most relevant, attractive, and modern to our societies and economies. We encourage as many cartographers and GI scientists as possible from your country to be present in Tokyo to participate in this wonderful occasion.

Information and deadlines for national members concerning paper submission, the International Cartographic Exhibition, the Barbara Petchenik Children’s World Map Competition, ICA Scholarships and the General Assembly can be found in the following document:

László Zentai
Secretary-General and Treasurer of the ICA

Category: General News

Minutes of the ICA Extraordinary General Assembly 2017 are available now

Menno-Jan Kraak and the Executive Committee at the Extraordinary General Assembly 2017

The Minutes of the ICA Extraordinary General Assembly 2017 are available on the ICA website. The main item of the Extraordinary General Assembly was the change of the ICA Statutes. Some of the suggestions were accepted by the Extraordinary General Assembly. The updated version of the Statutes is available here. The French translation of the General Assembly minutes and the French translation of the Statutes will be added later.

– László Zentai
Secretary-General and Treasurer of the ICA

Category: General News

Obituary: Donald Trevor Pearce

Don T. Pearce

It is with great sorrow that ICA received the sad news that Mr. Donald Trevor Pearce passed away.

Don Pearce set off his cartographic career in 1947 as a cartographic draftsman.

In 1978 he began his involvement in the international cartographic community by preparing and successfully negotiating Australia’s bid for the Seventh General Assembly and Twelfth International Cartographic Conference, which was held in Perth in 1984.

Don Pearce became the Secretary-General of the ICA in 1984 and served in that position until 1992. He remained one of the Vice Presidents of the ICA and continued to represent Australia with distinction until 1995. In 1995, he received the award of Honorary Fellow of ICA in recognition of his participation in the Executive Committee as Secretary-General and Treasurer.

In 1987 he established Promaco Conventions, he has served as Chairman of the Perth Convention Bureau and was responsible for the establishment of the Meeting Industry Association of Western Australia and subsequently the National Association.

In 2002 the Mapping Sciences Institute of Australia awarded its highest honour, the Gold Medal, to Don Pearce who has made a significant contribution to the development of the profession in Australia.

Don Pearce has demonstrated a level of enthusiasm and commitment rarely observed in people holding honorary positions.

The International Cartographic Association shall remember him forever.

 

Category: General News

ICA supports ICSU’s calls on the government of the United States to rescind the Executive Order “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States”

The next International Cartographic Conference (ICC) will take place in Washington (D.C.), U.S.A. July 2–7, 2017. The recent executive order issued by the U.S. Government that might restrict cartographers from some ICA member countries to travel to ICC 2017 worries the ICA. The ICA follows the rulings of the International Council for Science (ICSU). Therefore the ICA supports ICSU’s recent call on the U.S. government to rescind the executive order to ban entry of citizens from seven countries (Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Syria) to the U.S.A.:

Paris, 31 January 2017 — In the opinion of the Council, the Order is inappropriately broad in its scope and unfairly targets individuals based on their origin, putting it into violation of the Principle of Universality of Science, enshrined in the Council’s statutes. It is also concerned about the negative effects the Order will have on the freedom of scientific exchange among scientists and students of science worldwide, resulting in negative impacts on the progress of science, and impeding societies around the globe from benefitting from this progress.

As the world’s leading non-governmental international scientific organization, the Council promotes the Universality of Science on the basis that science is a common human endeavor that transcends national boundaries and is to be shared by all people. It believes that scientific progress results from global exchange of ideas, data, research materials and understanding of the work of others.

In advocating the free and responsible practice of science, ICSU promotes equitable opportunities for access to science and its benefits, and opposes discrimination based on such factors as ethnic origin, religion, citizenship, language, political or other opinion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or age. The Council believes that the complex problems of our world can only be solved through international dialogue, collaboration and the sharing and exchange of ideas and research findings.

Statute 5 of the International Council for Science (ICSU) states: The Principle of Universality (freedom and responsibility) of Science: the free and responsible practice of science is fundamental to scientific advancement and human and environmental well-being. Such practice, in all its aspects, requires freedom of movement, association, expression and communication for scientists, as well as equitable access to data, information, and other resources for research. It requires responsibility at all levels to carry out and communicate scientific work with integrity, respect, fairness, trustworthiness, and transparency, recognising its benefits and possible harms.

– Source: icsu.org

Category: General News

Deadline extended for bids to organize the International Cartographic Conference 2021

Opening ceremony ICC2015, Dresden, Germany

The International Cartographic Association invites bids from national members to organize the 30th International Cartographic Conference in 2021 (ICC2021). The deadline has now been extended to 31 August 2016.

For details, please check out our ICC 2021 page and the call in PDF format.

– László Zentai
Secretary-General and Treasurer of the ICA

Category: General News

Results of the 16th General Assembly of the ICA

The 16th ICA General Assembly was closed on the last day of ICC2015.
Slides of the agenda can be found here.

The Executive Committee for the term 2015-2019 is:

  • President: Menno-Jan Kraak (The Netherlands)
  • Secretary-General and Treasurer: László Zentai (Hungary)
  • Vice-Presidents:
    • Sara Fabrikant (Switzerland)
    • David Forrest (United Kingdom)
    • Yaolin Liu (China)
    • Pilar Sanchez-Ortiz (Spain)
    • Monika Sester (Germany)
    • Lynn Usery (USA)
    • Vít Voženílek (Czech Republic)
  • Past President: Georg Gartner (Austria)

The 17th General Assembly and the 29th International Cartographic Conference in 2019 will be held in Tokyo, Japan.

All corresponding website subpages (EC, conferences, commissions, working groups) will be updated within the course of next week. Please stay tuned.

Category: General News

Submission of National Reports for the General Assembly 2015

national-report_sweden

Sweden submitted the first national report for the General Assembly 2015

Each national member organisation of the ICA is expected to send a report to each General Assembly on the cartographic and GI science activities in the country during the previous four years.

The first report of the term 2011–2015 already arrived. It was submitted by national member Sweden. All reports for the upcoming General Assembly will be available in the National Reports section, which is updated as reports arrive.

László Zentai
– ICA Secretary-General

Category: Member News

Nominations for the next ICA Executive Committee (2015–2019)

The summary of nominations the ICA got by the deadline of March 23 for the next Executive Committee (2015–2019):

  • President: Menno-Jan Kraak (The Netherlands)
  • Secretary-General: László Zentai (Hungary)
  • EC members (in the order of nomination date): Sara Fabrikant (Switzerland), Lynn Usery (USA), Vít Voženílek (Czech Republic), David Forrest (United Kingdom), Monika Sester (Germany), Masatoshi Arikawa (Japan), Pilar Sanchez-Ortiz (Spain), Yaolin Liu (China), Igor Drecki (New Zealand)

 
According to the ICA Statutes:

The Executive Committee of the Association consists of the following members:

  • The President of the Association, who presides over all regular and extraordinary General Assemblies, the meetings of the Executive Committee, International Cartographic Conferences and acts as the main representative of the Association.
  • A Past President, who shall serve for one term following the term of President.
  • Five to seven Vice-Presidents, the exact number to be decided at the General Assembly of Delegates. They assist the President in the performance of his or her different duties.
  • A Secretary General and Treasurer, who is responsible for the administration and the general running of the Association.

The nominees will introduce themselves on the first day of the ICA General Assembly (23 August), the voting will take place on the second day of the General Assembly (28 August). The nomination documents (CV, declaration and the official nomination) will be available on the ICA website later as part of the General Assembly documentation.

László Zentai
– ICA Secretary-General

Category: General News
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