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Welcome to the website of the International Cartographic AssociationGet to know the ICA Executive CommitteeICA awards scholarships for early career scientists to participate in official ICA events
Welcome to the website of the International Cartographic Association
Get to know the ICA Executive Committee
ICA awards scholarships for early career scientists to participate in official ICA events

ICC2023: Early Bird Registration Special Ends May 31st

If you’re planning to attend the 31st Cartographic Conference 2023, now is the perfect time to register as our early bird registration offer ends on May 31st, 2023. Join 800 delegates from nearly 78 countries in Cape Town, South Africa!

We are also proud to announce that the UN-GGIM Africa 9th Meeting of the Regional Committee will be hosted alongside ICC 2023 as well as SDG DATA Hub Workshops that are open for all to attend. Register today on icc2023.org

We look forward to welcoming you in Cape Town!

Category: General News

Invitation to Pre-ICC2023 Workshop Other Cartographies

The ICA Commission on Art and Cartography invites to a workshop prior to ICC2023 in Cape Town, South Africa, on August 11, 2023. 

Background

The ICC2023’s theme is SMART CARTOGRAPHY FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. How can this theme be interpreted through Art? The Commission on Art & Cartography’s Terms of Reference include the directive to “advance the field of artistic and experimental cartographies, including but not limited to such subfields as narrative cartography, cinematic cartography, sensory and phenomenological approaches to mapping, locative media, performative and performance-based cartographies, and media archaeological and other research-creation or practice-led processes.” What might “sustainability” mean in terms of these and other such subfields? However the theme is interpreted, one thing is clear: other ways are needed, other points of view, other methodologies, visions, practices. What other cartographies can challenge the status quo?

The goal of this workshop is to provide an intellectual and creative space to share different ideas around artistic methodologies of mapping and engaging with space and place, particularly those that challenge the status quo of capitalism, colonialism, extractive resource development (etc., the list is long). The format of the workshop will be as follows: a morning of lightning presentations from all of the participants, to introduce each other; an afternoon of 3-4 mini-workshops that explore different methodologies or practices related to our theme of Other Cartographies.

The workshop will be hosted by the National Geospatial Information in Cape Town, South Africa on Friday, August 11th from 10am-5pm. A catered lunch is included!

Please submit either a 100-150 word proposal if you are interested in leading a mini-workshop of about 45-60 minutes, or a short bio if interested in attending as a participant.

Submission Process & Registration

The workshop is open to everyone with an interest in alternative and sustainable mapping art practices and experimental cartographies. Registration is required and is free of charge. Please note that it is not necessary to be registered for the main ICC conference (which requires fees) to be able to attend the workshop. For more information or to register, please contact Workshop Coordinator Sharron Mirsky (see contact details on the workshop website).

Timeline

  • May 20, 2023 – Call for participants and workshop leaders
  • June 15, 2023 – Deadline for submitting abstracts and proposals (max. 150 words)
  • June 22, 2023 – Successful Applicants notified;
  • July 1, 2023 – Final program released;
  • August 11, 2023 – Workshop prior to the ICC 2023

Please find more information on the workshop website.

Invitation to Pre-ICC2023 Workshop on Cartographic and Geospatial Information Education: Transformation in the Era of AI

You are warmly invited to participate in and contribute your research, experiences and insights to the International Workshop on Cartographic and Geospatial Information Education: Transformation in the Era of AI, jointly organized by the Commission on Education and Training, the Working Group on the Cartographic Body of Knowledge and the Commission on Open Source Geospatial Technologies in partnership with the Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

The workshop will take place at the campus of the Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa, on August 12, 2023. It is scheduled for attendees to conveniently continue their journey to the 31st International Cartographic Conference in the same city between August 13-18, 2023.

Background

Education is recovering to a better normal after the pandemic, while facing an ever evolving digital revolution. Powerful digital technologies and tools ensure quality and sustainable education for all. Among these, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the contents and pedagogies of cartographic and geospatial information education. Debates about roles of generative AI tools in education are being heated in various fields. What will the role of AI be in cartography and GIS education, research and practice? It is exciting to explore how educators and learners can better tap such tools for the transformation of Cartographic and Geospatial Information Education in the era of AI.

Call for participation

This workshop will bring together educators and experts to share the latest work, best practices and developments on related themes. Suggested topics of interest can include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Developing the Body of Knowledge for cartography
  • AI-powered teaching and learning in cartography and GIS
  • Integrating AI into cartographic and geospatial information education
  • Curriculum design for cartographic and geospatial information education
  • Developing on-line educational resources for cartography and GIS teaching
  • Best practices in teaching and learning in cartography and geospatial information
  • Open source software and datasets in cartographic and geospatial information education
  • Integrating cartography into education of geomatics, geography and other disciplines
  • Partnerships and collaborations between universities and industry in GIS
  • Experiences in teaching cartography and GIS in general education
  • Cartographic and geospatial information education in Africa

The workshop is designed to be hybrid depending on local conditions and open to all interested researchers in cartographic and geospatial information education. We cordially invite you to join forum to exchange thoughts on the Education Transformation in the Era of AI.

Submission Details

You are mostly welcome to present your work in this workshop by submitting abstracts to the organizers, using the ICA abstract template.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is June 06, 2023. Acceptance notification will be sent out before June 30, 2023. Authors of accepted submissions are expected to present their works in the workshop. Selected papers will be invited for a further review for an edited volume planned next year.

Please find more information on the workshop website.

Organizing Committee

  • Silvana Camboim, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil
  • Terje Midtbø, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
  • Zahn Münch, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
  • Stefan Peters, University of South Australia, Australia
  • Tao Wang, Capital Normal University, China

Call for Presentations: ICC 2023 Pre-Conference Workshop on Cartography and AI (MapAI)

The ICA Commissions on Visual Analytics and Cognitive Issues in Geographic Information Visualization are pleased to announce a Workshop on Cartography and AI (MapAI 2023) taking place on August 12, 2023 in Stellenbosch, South Africa before the ICC 2023.

Motivation

Cartographers have assessed the potential use of artificial intelligence for mapping for decades. Early work on expert systems explored AI as early as the 1980s (e.g., Buttenfield 1984; Fisher & Mackaness 1987; Brassel & Weibel, 1988; Johnson & Basoglu 1989). The AI tools of the time were limited by the (lack of) availability of computing power and data. More recently, as AI tools have become both more powerful and easier to use, a few cartographers and computer scientists have begun experimenting with artificial intelligence technologies to see how they might be applied to maps and mapping processes (e.g., Kang et al., 2019; Zhao et al, 2021; Christophe et al., 2022; Zhou et al, 2022; Santos et al., 2023). Others have made initial efforts to review the potential of AI technologies for cartography (Kang et al., 2022), laying out some possibilities and also some points of caution by identifying ethical issues these technologies raise and/or exacerbate. The 2022 launches of DALL·E 2, ChatGPT, and other AI platforms have caught the attention of the general public by making artificial intelligence technologies easy to use for a range of everyday tasks. Some cartographers have already put these to use for assisting their mapping practice (see, for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCOpxy3wk-o). There is much more for cartographers to explore, including the potential impacts of the use of AI on map users’ and map makers’ cognitive processes (see Keskin & Kettunen, 2023 for an initial investigation).

In this workshop, we aim to bring together ideation and practical experimentation to collaboratively explore some of the potential and limits of current AI technologies for cartographic practice and map use.

Call for Presentations

The first half of our planned 1-day workshop will be for participants to present Lightning Talks. In 5 minutes presenters will showcase either one major challenge or one significant opportunity you see that intersects between AI and Cartography.

These presentations should focus on frontiers in cartographic research that intersect with AI tools or techniques, and creative/unorthodox approaches are welcomed. Work-in-progress is the intended target, versus projects that are already fully completed.

Example topics could include, but are not limited to:

  • Implications of deepfake maps and satellite images
  • Machine-learning / AI based map updating based on image input
  • AI-generated wayfinding directions
  • Geographic aspects of algorithmic bias
  • Automated means of iterating design elements in cartographic layouts
  • Explainable AI & mapping
  • Natural language interaction with maps
  • Mapping with ChatGPT, DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, etc…
  • Human-machine collaboration using maps

Workshop presentations will be used to motivate group discussions and hands-on experimentation in the second half of the planned 1-day workshop. We are excited to work together to push the limits of various AI mechanisms for cartographic design and inquiry, learning along the way about where the frontiers lie for future research and applications of AI in Cartography.

Submission Details

Please submit an abstract of <250 words that showcases either one major challenge or one significant opportunity that intersects AI and Cartography by May 15, 2023 to EasyChair.  All submissions will be reviewed by the workshop organizers for clarity and fit with workshop themes. A final workshop agenda including accepted talks will be communicated by June 23, 2023.

Venue & Workshop Logistics

This workshop will take place on August 12, 2023 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. If you are attending the ICC 2023 in Cape Town, Stellenbosch is roughly an hour away by Taxi/Private Car. We recommend staying in Stellenbosch for 1 or 2 nights if you prefer not to commute to/from Cape Town. Stellenbosch is famous for its wineries and there are many scenic hotels located on wineries nearby.

We will notify authors and publish a preliminary workshop schedule by June 23, 2023.

Organizers

  • Amy L. Griffin, RMIT
  • Anthony C. Robinson, Penn State University
  • Arzu Çöltekin, FHNW – University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland

Please find more information on the workshop website.

Announcement: Pre-ICC2023 Workshop on OGC Standards for making geospatial data, maps and charts findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable

The ICA Commission on SDI and Standards and the Open Geospatial Consortium will jointly organize the pre-ICC 2023 Workshop on OGC Standards for making geospatial data, maps and charts findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.

The workshop will be held on August 11, 2023 at the Colophon Room, SANBI, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, Cape Town.

Workshop program

  • Introduction to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and its standards by Gobe Hobona, Director of Product Management for Standards, OGC
  • Technical foundations of OGC standards by Franz-Josef Behr, Co-Chair: ICA Commission on SDI & Standards
  • OGC API Standards by Gobe Hobona, Director of Product Management for Standards, OGC
  • Further into OGC API Standards by Gobe Hobona, Director of Product Management for Standards, OGC

For more information visit the workshop website.

Invitation to participate in the pre-ICC2023 Workshop on Cartography Connecting Schools

The ICA Commissions on Cartography and Children and Maps and Graphics for Blind and Partially Sighted People have the pleasure to invite all interested colleagues to participate in the Joint ICA Workshop Cartography Connecting Schools on August 12th, 2023.

The workshop is a gathering of experts, researchers, professionals, and students in the field of Cartography from around the world. It will provide an excellent platform to exchange ideas, share research findings, and foster collaborations with colleagues from different countries and backgrounds.

The workshop will take place as hybrid event: We will meet at Cape Town International Convention Center (CTICC) and the participants will also be able to join via Google Meet. Registration is free.

We believe that your participation would add significant value to the event, and we would be honored if you could join us.

Please visit our workshop website for more information and registration.

For our national members: upcoming deadlines for the 31st ICC and 19th General Assembly

We kindly invite all our members to the 31st International Cartographic Conference (ICC2023) and to the 19th General Assembly of the International Cartographic Association! As you know, the conference, organised by the South African National Committee for ICA, will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 13 to 18 August 2023. All those active in cartography and geographic information sciences are warmly invited and encouraged to participate in this major event for our profession.

This is a reminder of important deadlines for our national members, which are soon coming up and cannot be extended. Please take note of these deadlines and act accordingly, if your country wants to actively participate in the conference and the future development of our Association through the next General Assembly.

Details about the different deadlines and tasks can be found in the following letters by the Secretary-General and Treasurer:

 

Summary of important upcoming dates for the ICC and General Assembly 2023

DateDeadlineReport to
NowContact for Barbara Petchenik CompetitionICA Commission
NowContact for International Cartographic ExhibitionLocal Organisers
12 March 2023ALL nominations to the General AssemblyICA Secretary-General
12 May 2023Agenda for the General Assembly availableAll delegates
15 May 2023Early-bird registration closesAll participants
15 May 2023International Cartographic ExhibitionLocal Organisers
15 May 2023Technical ExhibitionLocal Organisers
30 June 2023Name delegates for the General AssemblyICA Secretary-General
12 July 2023National ReportICA Secretary-General
31 July 2023ObituariesICA Secretary-General

Thomas Schulz
Secretary-General and Treasurer of ICA

Call for Papers: Pre-ICC2023 Symposium on Location-based Big Data and GeoAI 2023 (LocBigDataAI 2023)

The ICA Commission on Location Based ServicesCommission on Geospatial Analysis and Modelling, and Working Group on Digital Transformation of National Mapping Agencies will jointly organize the pre-ICC 2023 Symposium on Location-Based Big Data and GeoAI (LocBigDataAI 2023).

The symposium will be held in hybrid mode, and will be associated with ICC 2023. It is a follow-up of the successful previous conferences of ICLSM 2015LSMTD 2017, and LocBigData 2019.

Conference Topics

Acquisition, management, and analytics of location-based big data

  • Crowdsourcing and Internet of Things
  • Data management, cleaning, and integration
  • Geovisual analytics
  • Computational mobility and activity analysis
  • Descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive analytics

Geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI)

  • Big data analytics and machine/deep learning
  • Spatially explicit AI techniques
  • Geography/GIScience-guided AI
  • Explainable GeoAI
  • Integration of data- and theory-driven approaches

Applications of location-based big data and GeoAI

  • Human spatial behavior, activity, and mobility
  • Place modelling and understanding
  • Transportation and traffic
  • Social network analysis
  • Public health
  • Smart and sustainable cities

Social and ethical issues of location-based big data and GeoAI

  • Data quality and representativeness
  • Bias of LocBigData and GeoAI
  • Social inequality in cyber and physical space
  • (Geo)privacy and ethical issues
  • Governance of LocBigData and GeoAI

Call for papers (CFP as a PDF)

You are invited to submit work-in-progress or position papers with a length of 400-1200 words in PDF format at EasyChair. If accepted, at least one of the authors must attend (online or in-person) the symposium to present the work.  Authors of selected submissions will be invited to submit full papers for considerations for publications in a journal special issue.

Important dates

  • Short papers Due: April 15, 2023
  • Acceptance notification: May 15, 2023
  • Symposium: August 12, 2023

For more information visit the conference website: https://lbs.icaci.org/locbigdata2023/

President’s greetings: New Year’s Greetings for 2023

Despite numerous global crises including wars, which of course have affected us and some of our members greatly, this last year has also been fulfilling for the ICA. As we began to emerge from the pandemic throughout the year, more ICA activities became prominent as some of us were able to travel to meet one another once again. In future blogs, I will highlight a few of those events to bring everyone up-to-date. Currently, our colleagues in South Africa are very busy planning the next General Assembly and the 31st International Cartographic Conference in Cape Town from August 13–18, 2023. The ICA Executive Committee and the ICC2023 Local Organizing Committee are looking forward to seeing you in the beautiful city of Cape Town. And please, don’t forget to send in your abstract, if you want to present and share your scientific work in Cape Town. The deadline is 16 January 2023: https://icc2023.org

For the moment, on behalf of the ICA Executive Committee, we want to wish you and your family, colleagues, and friends peaceful holidays and all the best for 2023! We are looking forward to a very productive time with you in the coming year.

– Tim Trainor
President of the International Cartographic Association

Tag:

ICC 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa – submissions deadline extended to 9 and 16 January respectively

Smart Cartography for Sustainable Development
31st International Cartographic Conference (ICC 2023),
13-18 August 2023,
Cape Town, South Africa

Call for abstracts and papers

The International Cartographic Association (ICA) invites you to share your research, practice and experiences in cartography and GIScience at the 31st International Cartographic Conference (ICC 2023), to be held from 13 to 18 August 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa. Submissions of abstracts (1-2 pages) and full papers (8 pages) in English are accepted, following the respective ICA templates.

Abstracts and full papers will be peer reviewed by a minimum of two experts in the field against the following criteria: scientific originality, potential interest to the community, proper documentation of prior work, clarity of presentation, technical correctness and correct use of language. Authors of accepted abstracts and papers will be invited to present their work in English at the ICC 2023, either as oral presentation or as poster. The presenting author must register for the conference. Accompanying persons, who are registered for the conference, will receive one complementary entry to one technical session of their choice, such as to support a speaker when delivering their presentation. Submit your abstract or paper at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icc2023.

Important dates

  • 9 January 2023 – Extended submission of full papers closes
  • 16 January 2023 – Extended submission of abstracts closes
  • February 2023 – Conference registration opens
  • 28 February 2023 – Notification of acceptance
  • 8 May 2023 – Submission of revised abstracts and papers
  • 15 May 2023 – Early Bird registration closes
  • 15 May 2023 – Registration deadline for presenters of abstracts, papers and posters

Conference publications

ICC 2023 publications follow the ICA publication regulations. Accepted abstracts and papers that have been revised to address reviewer comments will be published in one of the ICA publications: Abstracts of the ICA, Proceedings of the ICA, Advances of the ICA or International Journal of Cartography. Authors of accepted abstracts have the option to expand their abstract into a full paper of 8 pages for publication in the Proceedings of the ICA. If they opt not to do this, their abstract will be published in the Abstracts of the ICA.

Full papers are accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the ICA or in the Advances of the ICA. Selected papers accepted for the Advances will be invited to submit their papers to the International Journal of Cartography, for inclusion in a special issue.

On submission, authors will be able to indicate whether they would like their abstracts and papers to be considered for a special issue in one of the ICA’s three affiliated journals – Cartographica, Cartography and Geographic Information Science (CAGIS) and The Cartographic Journal. Following the submission of revisions, editors of the affiliated journals will invite authors of selected abstracts and papers with the potential to be developed into a full journal paper to submit a substantially revised and/or expanded paper to a special issue in their journal, to be published in 2024.

Conference theme and topics

The conference theme is Smart Cartography for Sustainable Development. Conference topics are related to ICA Commissions and other topics of interest to the ICA community:

  • Art and cartography
  • Atlases
  • Augmented, virtual and mixed reality in cartography
  • Beyond SDIs towards the future geospatial ecosystem
  • Cartographic heritage into the digital
  • Cartography and children
  • Cartography and GIScience for climate change
  • Cartography in early warning and crisis management
  • Cognitive issues in geographic information visualization
  • Crowdsourcing in cartography and GIScience
  • Earth Observation and cartography
  • Education and training
  • Ethical issues in cartography and GIScience
  • Generalisation and multiple representation
  • Geospatial analysis and modelling
  • Geospatial data, analysis and mapping for SDGs
  • Geospatial data, analysis and mapping for service delivery
  • Geospatial data hubs for SDGs
  • Geospatial semantics
  • History of cartography
  • Informal settlement mapping
  • Location-based services
  • Map design
  • Mapping Africa for Africa
  • Map production and geoinformation management
  • Map projections
  • Maps and graphics for blind and partially sighted people
  • Maps and the internet
  • Maps for sport and leisure activities, such as trekking cycling and orienteering
  • Marine cartography
  • Military cartography
  • Mountain cartography
  • Open data for cartography and GIScience
  • Open science in cartography and GIScience
  • Open source geospatial technologies
  • Participatory mapping
  • Planetary cartography
  • SDI and standards
  • Sensor-driven mapping
  • Theoretical cartography
  • Standardization in cartography
  • Topographic mapping
  • Toponymy
  • Ubiquitous mapping
  • UN GGIM IGIF implementations
  • User experience
  • Visual analytics

Looking forward to seeing you all in Cape Town next year!

Regards,
Serena Coetzee
Head of the scientific programme at ICC2023

Category: General News
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