The last Map of the Month of 2013 is not one but two maps by TU Dresden with the titles Khumbu Himal and Shorong/Hinku. They received the second jury prize in the category “maps on paper” at the International Cartographic Exhibition at ICC 2013 in Dresden.
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During ICC 2013 all commission chairs presented their commissions in a speed presentation. You can check out the presentation slides below (or via our ICC 2013 sub-page).
The Map of the Month of November is the project “Scents of Glasgow” by Kate McLean. It received the third jury prize in the category “other cartographic products” at the International Cartographic Exhibition at ICC 2013 in Dresden.
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The October 2013 issue of the newsletter of the Commission on Cartography and Children is available at http://lazarus.elte.hu/ccc/newslet/1013.pdf.
The ICA-OSGeo Lab Network was awarded for the support provided for the NASA World Wind Europa Challenge.
The first edition of NASA World Wind Europa Challenge achieved its objective of inspiring ideas for building great applications that serve the INSPIRE Directive and uses NASA’s open source virtual globe technology World Wind.
Our Map of the Month series is back with a Chinese atlas for October: “Chang’E-1 Topographic Atlas of the Moon” published by the National Astronomical Observatories at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It received the third jury prize in the category “Atlases” at the International Cartographic Exhibition at ICC 2013 in Dresden.
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Photos from the 26th International Cartographic Conference are now online on our Flickr page (by courtesy of the local organizers and László Zentai).
Fraser Taylor during his acceptance speech at ICC 2013
Fraser Taylor and Georg Gartner
At the ICC 2013 in Dresden, the Carl Mannerfelt gold medal was awarded to Fraser Tayor. Read the laudation by Bill Cartwright, Immediate Past-President of ICA, below:
I first met Professor Taylor when he was President of the International Cartographic Association (ICA), at one of the early International Cartographic Conferences that I attended. I was involved in research in the application of interactive multimedia to cartography and the visualization of geography, an area that Professor Taylor championed in the international cartographic and geographic communities. His enthusiasm about contributing to international scientific communities was, and is, infectious and his encouragement to participate in research and development was extremely supportive to young and experienced scientists alike. This introduction to scholarly work in cartography and geography set me on a path of participation and collaboration with the International Cartographic Association and with international cartographic and geographical communities, a path that I continue to follow today.
Professor Taylor is Distinguished Research Professor of Geography and Environmental Science, and in International Affairs and Director of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre, Carleton University, Canada. He has the immediate past Chair of the International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM), an international project by world national mapping agencies of the to produce a 1:1 million digital map of the world to support environmental and sustainable development decision-making, for the past decade. This work supports international collaboration and decision-making by ensuring that appropriate, current and timely geospatial information is available.
In 2008 Professor Taylor was elected Fellow to the Social Sciences Division of the Academy of Social Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2009 he was appointed to the United Nations Expert Group on Geospatial Information Management and to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Global Advisory Council. Also in 2009, he was elected Chair, Technical Committee III, Geospatial Data Collection, Management and Dissemination, Ninth United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for the Americas. In 2010 he was presented with the Distinguished Service Award by the Canadian Association of African Studies.
He has contributed to regional cartographic and geographical activities, particularly the application of geomatics to socioeconomic development in a national and international context with special reference to the Canadian North, Africa, Latin America, China and Antarctica. He has also advanced regional and rural development theory and practice with special emphasis on sustainable development and indigenous development strategies in Africa and Latin America. In 2006 he was nominated by the Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific and accepted by the UN Conference Secretariat, for the position of Vice Chairman, Technical Committee 3 of the United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Pacific. He was also Head of the Canadian Delegation at this conference. As well, he has been active in Africa – as a member, International Cartographic Association Working Group on Mapping Africa for Africans and Antarctica – in 2000 he was appointed a member of the International Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) Working Group for Geodesy and Geographic Information, now entitled SCAR Group of Experts on Geospatial Information.
In the International Cartographic Association he was elected Vice-President in 1984, and then President in 1987. He was again elected President for a further 4-year term of office in 1991. In August 1999, to recognise his outstanding contributions to the Association, Professor Taylor was elected an Honorary Fellow of the International Cartographic Association. As well, Professor Taylor represented the ICA on Joint Boards. In 1989 he was elected President of the International Union for Surveys and Mapping and in 2004 he was appointed a member of the Joint Board of the Geospatial Information Societies (JBGIS).
In Canada Professor Taylor is an esteemed contributor to cartographic and geographical societies. In 1978, and again in 1979 he was elected President of the Canadian Cartographic Association. In 1999 he was appointed Co-Chair of the National Atlas Advisory Committee by Natural Resources Canada. And, in 2006 he received the Award of Distinction for exceptional scholarly contributions to cartography by the Canadian Cartographic Association. He has been active in many areas of research in Canada, receiving funding for a “Living” Cybercartographic Atlas of Indigenous Artifacts and Knowledge from The Inukshuk Fund in 2007 and a Research Initiative Grant from the SSHRC in 2002 for the Cybercartography and the New Economy project. In 2012 he was awarded the Royal Canadian Geographic Society and 3M Canada Canadian Award for Environmental Innovation.
As well as these activities, Professor Taylor has undertaken research and development and published in areas where his expertise is internationally recognised, namely:
- The theory and practice of cybercartography;
- Electronic atlases, interactive cartographic systems and visualization;
- The preservation and archiving of geospatial data;
- Mapping for the blind and visually impaired; and
- Canada’s international policies towards developing nations.
He has published extensively and presented in many fora on these topics. As well, he was appointed member of Advisory Board for Volume Six of the History of Cartography Series, University of Chicago Press, as Series Editor of the book Series entitled Modern Cartography published by Elsevier Science and Editor, Progress in Contemporary Cartography Series, Wiley & Sons. He has also edited and co-edited two editions of publications related to Cybercartography Theory and Practice.
Professor Taylor has made significant contributions and undertaken leadership roles in cartography and geography, both internationally and in Canada. Professor Taylor works tirelessly in research, teaching, publishing and outreach programmes. He is respected globally for his rigorous research, quality publications and enthusiastic approach to furthering scientific knowledge related to cartography and geography.
The Carl Mannerelt Medal Recognises excellence in scholarship and research in Cartography and GI Science. It is awarded Ob Merita Egregia (acquired) by extraordinary merits. The award of the Carl Mannerfelt Medal formally acknowledges Professor Taylor’s achievements, his effort in the international cartographic research and professional communities and his contributions to humanity.
On 3 September 2013, UNOOSA/UN-SPIDER presented a new report which shows the economic, humanitarian and organizational benefits of applying geoinformation to disaster management.
The report “The Value of Geo-Information for Disaster and Risk Management (VALID): Benefit Analysis and Stakeholder Assessment” is a joint publication of UNOOSA/UN-SPIDER and the Joint Board of Geoinformation Societies (JBGIS), including the International Cartographic Association (ICA). The publication aims to raise awareness and to help set priorities in research and development.
The VALID report is a follow-up publication to the Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies (JBGIS) and UNOOSA/UN-SPIDER published ‘Geoinformation for Disaster and Risk Management – Examples and Best Practices’, a compilation of case studies that provides information on what can be done with geoinformation in support of disaster and risk management – methods, systems, applications, experiences. It analyses cases and offers an expert stakeholder assessment.
The publication (10 MB) can be downloaded from here: http://www.un-spider.org/sites/default/files/VALIDPublication.pdf
Georg Gartner, Kirsi Virrantaus
Kirsi Virrantaus during her acceptance speech
The award
During ICC 2013 Kirsi Virrantaus received the ICA Honorary Fellowship. Below you can read Menno-Jan Kraak‘s laudatio:
Dear Kirsi,
It is a great pleasure to stand here, and address you before I hand you one of the ICA awards. This award of ICA honours cartographers of outstanding international reputation who have made special contribution to the ICA.
So before I can hand this awards I have to convince the audience that you indeed qualify. Two keywords in the description of the award pop up clearly. International reputation & special contribution to ICA.
The last one is easy to verify because the ICA archives hold lot of proof. First of all you served two terms as vice-president. Starting in 1999 in Ottawa, Canada with a renewal to your term in Durban, South Africa and the obligatory end in Moscow, Russia in 2007. During those eight year is the Executive Committee started a tradition to have their meetings such that it coincided with Kirsi’s birthday, because during the first time it happened she took care of drinking logistics serving Finish vodka which was much appreciated. Today both EC meetings and birthdays are no longer that fun.
Well, one can wonder if just sitting there as vice president is good enough to qualify. That would be easy. But during your term you have also been active in two commissions: “Map and Spatial Data Use” and “Gender and Cartography”. And during your second term you also acted as working group chair of the working group on “Uncertainty of spatial data and quality of maps”. You have also hosted some pre-conference ICA events in 2007 in Espoo after which you organized a train trip from Helsinki to the main conference in Moscow. If this would not be enough you have also been the initiator of our research agenda. I clearly remember sitting in your class as co-chair of the visualization committee in La Coruna 2005, going though several exercises you prepared to get the framework of the agenda settled. Together with our former secretary general David Fairbairn you presented the first draft in Moscow 2007, which we could later publish in many cartographic journals. The fact they you got everyone in ICA to participate in this endeavor is also due to your international reputation.
Still I tried to find some more evidence for this. This was also not too difficult since you have played several leading roles in our sister organizations like FIG and ISPRS. But those activities happened before your ICA career. Your career has been an academic one, graduating in 1977 in Architecture, followed by additional degrees in Cartography and Surveying. Tracing your academic history, your publications track record is not easy because of the many metamorphoses you last name went trough. Your CV states: Kirsi VIRRANTAUS (formerly Makkonen, Eloranta, Artimo).
But I also have my own memories, we first met in The Hague in 1985 at an UDMS conference. And since then we somehow kept in touch. Today you are even Vice Dean at the School of Engineering of the Aalto University in Espoo/Helsinki. Well enough evidence to convince this audience I believe. Kirsi, I m happy to hand you this ICA reward, congratulations.