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.
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.
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.
Milan Konečný during his aceptance speech
Ferjan Ormeling during the laudatio
Milan Konečný
During ICC 2013 Milan Konečný received the ICA Honorary Fellowship. Below you can read Ferjan Ormeling’s laudatio:
For me, it is both an honour and pleasure to address Milan on this occasion, as his former team mate when he was president . Milan is a self-made man, born in a small town in Eastern Moravia. He was able to study in Brno, and distinguished himself there in such a way that he was asked to participate in polar expeditions to Spitsbergen. He opted for a scientific career and focused on digital cartography.
After his obligatory military service he got a job at the university and there he steadily advanced, also because he set up a lab on geoinformatics and cartography, and this is most important as I guess it enabled him to participate in national and international conferences, and also to participate as officer or board member in national and international scientific associations, where he has a most impressive record. It enabled him to travel widely, I guess he must have spent more than a year of his life in airplanes, and as far as the ICA is concerned, it culminated in his presidency from 2003-2007: Amongst the many things he initiated and achieved there, the most important for ICA were the policy towards the international organizations in the surveying and mapping field that were springing up at the time, such as digital Earth and Global Map (through memoranda of understanding, Milan linked ICA to UN bodies or other scientific organisations like PAIGH) , the increased cooperation with national mapping agencies, which he aimed for, together with Ramon Lorenzo, and the support he gave to cartographers in South and Eastern Europe. Apart from that, all his life he has been strengthening ties and links with cartographers in Siberia, China and Japan.
Just to show his international orientation, I have listed some of the institutions or associations Milan has been involved with – IEAS, Digital Earth, Global Map, GSDI, European initiatives like Inspire, and UN initiatives. As I said, Milan’s specialty has been building bridges to Eastern Europe and Asia, which started already at a time when it was difficult to travel outside the socialist bloc, but later Japan and India were added to his list of preferred destinations.
For all his contributions to the profession Milan was awarded prizes and honorary: from the Brazilian and Spanish cartographic societies, from the Novosibirsk and Sofia universities, he was asked as president of the European Joint Research Centre of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences, and it is only fitting that he is now awarded a honorary fellowship of the ICA – it has been long due, but we have the rule that this honorary fellowship can only be awarded to people that do not hold office in the board, and this is the first occasion after 16 years of Milan’s membership of the ICA executive committee that he can receive this distinction. There is one more item I want to mention, and that is that we first evaluated the venue where we now have the conference back when Milan was president in 2007, in order to select this venue, and the success of this conference alone justifies this decision to award Milan the honorary fellowhip. Milan, many congratulations!
25 Years of ICA. 1959–1984. By Ferdinand J. Ormeling Sr., PDF, 13 MB.
The ICA website’s “historical section” was updated.
The awards pages now include laudations where they are relevant. Winners of ICA travel awards and of the Children’s World Map Drawing Competition are not only listed, but some photos are linked.
The list of commissions and working groups of the former ICA General Assembly periods are also expanded. A new section of obituaries (based on former ICA News information) was also created. The full list of ICA Executive Committees is also available.
Ferdinand Ormeling’s book on the 25 years International Cartographic Association 1959–1984 was scanned and converted to text using optical character recognition. It is available on the history page.
Some information is still missing – we invite you to inform us about your knowledge. We are looking forward to your contributions: corrections and photographs are very welcome.
Professor Yasuo Masai was born in 1929 in Tokyo. He studied geography at Tokyo Bunrika University (presently University of Tsukuba) and there he was awarded a master’s degree (1953) and a doctor’s degree (1962) in science. Before receiving his doctor’s degree, he had studied abroad at Michigan State University, where he was awarded a PhD in geography (1960). He is an Emeritus professor of Rissho University, where he has taught geography for 16 years after teaching at Ochanomizu University for 10 years, and at the University of Tsukuba for 9 years.
He was the chair of the ICA Commission on Urban Cartography from l980 to 1987 and he organized meetings in Düsseldorf, Sofia, Tokyo, Perth, and other cities. He was also a member of the ICA Awards Committee from 1994 to 1997. He was also a national delegate of Japan at many ICA conferences. He was president of the Japan Cartographers’ Association from 1993 to 2000, and he became an honorary member in 2007.
He has published many books as an author or editor, including the Atlas of Tokyo (Heibonsha), Travels with Urban Maps (Hara-shobo), the Atlas of the World (D. Kindersley, Japanese edition), and others. One of his major academic contributions is a 1:20,000 Restored Urban Land Use Map of Edo (the old name of Tokyo as the feudal capital of Tokugawa Japan). This is a multicolor-printed map, scientifically converted from an old, geometrically imprecise map to a modern, accurate map to show land use coverage.
Because of these outstanding works, Professor Yasuo Masai is awarded with an Honorary Fellowship of the ICA.
Prof. Michael P. Peterson has an outstanding career in education research and service to the disciplines of cartography and geographic information science. His record of teaching accomplishments and awards, his excellent research particularly with topics of maps and the Internet, and his significant record of service to the his university, the discipline, and the ICA are exemplary of an ICA honoree. Professor Peterson has served the ICA as an exceptional Chair of the Commission on Maps and the Internet from 1999 to the present. His accomplishments as Commission Chair include expanding the research and educational frontier of Maps and the Internet, maintaining an exceptional Website for the Commission, conducting numerous short courses and workshops for the Commission in places around the world including Warsaw, Vienna, Madrid, Tokyo, Karlsruhe, Guangxhou, and Denver, Knoxville, and Shepherdstown in the United States. Publications by Professor Peterson under the auspices of the Commission include Maps and the Internet, a seminal book on the domain subject of the Commission.
Professor Michael P. Peterson is awarded an International Cartographic Association Honorary Fellowship Award for his outstanding contributions to the disciplines of Cartography and geographic information science and to the ICA through his work as Chair of the Commission on Maps and the Internet.
Monique Pelletier was born in 1934. She is a graduate of the Ecole des Chartes (National School of Palaeography and Archival Studies), the French school created in 1821 which contributes to the professional training of executives (chief archivists, librarians and curators) responsible for preserving and making available France’s cultural heritage.
Monique Pelletier obtained her diploma of Archivist Palaeographer after defending her PhD on the “Great Council from Charles VII to François 1st”. Her studies on the history of cartography are founded on her large knowledge of the French monarchy and its institutions in the XVI century, a particularly complex period in Europe history.
Appointed as Conservator at the French National Library in 1960, she was first in charge of developing the Book Catalogue of the Library (1960-1969). In 1976 she became Chief of the Department of Maps and Plans, and transformed her department into a modern and open map library, encouraging and herself participating in the research activity on the history of cartography. These activities pushed her to contribute actively to several international networks (IFLA, LIBER, IMAGO MUNDI and the ICA).
Within ICA, she succeeded Helen Wallis to lead the Commission of History of Cartography from 1987 to 1995. She also led the French Committee of Cartography from 1988 to 1998. Today as an Honorary Member of the Committee she is directing the publication of the journal Le Monde des Cartes. Always keenly involved in her research activities, she has participated in conferences, organised meetings and published many reports.
Her bibliography is lengthy and includes major volumes on cartographic development in France. It is summarized in a book produced for her retirement and focused on her career in cartography: Monique PELLETIER Tours et contours de la Terre : itinéraires d’une femme au cœur de la cartographie (Monique Pelletier – Rounds around the Earth : the itinerary of a woman in the heart of cartography), Presse de l’ENPC, 1999.
Her most recent book, published in 2009, is entitled: De Ptolémée à La Guillotière XV-XVIe siècles. Des cartes pour la France : pourquoi? comment? (From Ptolemy to La Guillotière, XV-XVI century: maps for France, why, how?), CTHS Edition, 2009.
The ICA Fellowship is a distinguished award recognising the contribution of the recipient to the work of the International Cartographic Association. For Bengt Rystedt, ICA has been a focus of an extraordinary range of activities which have brought excellence to the organisation.
Whilst showing exceptional attention to detail, Dr. Rystedt has always considered the long term health and welfare of the Association. His long term commitment to equity, notably in dealing with ICA’s outreach to less developed nations, is evident in his strong interest in African issues and his willingness to engage with organisations and individuals in Africa in order to improve capacity building in that important continent. Much of this work has been done whilst playing a leading role in the Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies, as an effective spokesperson for ICA and for the initiatives which have been proposed by the international geospatial community.
This practical approach has been matched by a true desire to develop the scientific basis of our organisation. Dr. Rystedt initiated the Research Agenda, and has been very much in favour of extending it to include the areas of Geographic Information Science which are central to the initiation and use of cartographic data and products.
His long term commitment to ICA is shown by service as Chair of the National and Regional Atlas Commission from 1985, service with the organising committee for the 1997 International Cartographic Conference in Sweden, and membership of the Executive Committee for many years, culminating in his election as President in 1999. In all his work for ICA, Dr. Rystedt has shown a great sense of responsibility, emphasising work and content but never his personal ambition. In his quiet and effective manner he was able to solve problems, and like the proud Swede he is, his diplomatic approach was always highly visible. He has been able to work always for the benefit of ICA over decades of loyal service.
For the dignified and outstanding way in which he has contributed for many years to the success of the ICA, the Association is pleased to award its Honorary Fellowship to Dr. Bengt Rystedt.
Ferjan Ormeling and William Cartwright at ICC 2009
The Carl Mannerfelt gold medal of ICA is awarded rarely, to cartographers of outstanding merit who have made significant contributions of an original nature to the field of cartography; it is awarded only on rare occasions in order to emphasise its distinction.
Professor Dr Ferjan Ormeling of the Netherlands matches this requirement, by his tireless efforts to promote and develop the discipline of cartography, alongside his excellent service to the International Cartographic Association.
The research and educational interests of Professor Ormeling have matched his commitment to ICA, and it is to these topics we must direct our attention. His original contributions have addressed a range of cartographic enquiries and thought, starting with his early PhD work on the important topic of toponymy. Professor Ormeling has continued this work to the present day: he is the vice chair of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, and has been convenor of its Working Group on Training Courses in Toponymy. In this capacity he has travelled the world on a volunteer basis, meeting, educating, and directing local cartographic practitioners and decision makers; and has organised courses in countries from Algeria to Indonesia.
His educational activities have included practical studies of cartographic education in fields such as animated mapping, but most importantly his jointly authored textbook (with Professor Kraak), Cartography: Visualization of Spatial Data, now in its third edition. He also co-chaired the ICA’s Commission on Education and Training for 12 years, and presented many workshops and publications on education.
His educational interests have supported strong research work also in the field of historical cartography; his specialisation in East Indies mapping has resulted in a number of extremely impressive large-format, academically-informed graphic works, but he has also studied the historical development of atlases closer to home – primarily his old school friend the famous Bos Atlas, used by every Dutch schoolchild. Again, the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography has benefitted from his sound support, particularly in the form of educational workshops.
Professor Ormeling has extended his incisive approach to cartographic thinking to newly emerging fields such as geovisualisation, data quality, media mapping, and environmental and planning mapping.
This extensive academic and research career has led to the publication of approximately 450 items with his name as author. Such a volume and quality of work, coupled with his support for ICA as Commission chair, national representative and Secretary General for 8 years, makes Ferjan Ormeling a worthy recipient of our highest honour, the Carl Mannerfelt gold medal.