June 15th and 16th 2021, the Earth Archive Virtual Congress will present several prominent speakers from the geospatial community. WGIC’s Executive director Barbara Ryan will join in a fireside chat.
The free-entrance, EA Congress is a two-day summit. It includes keynotes, collaborative panel discussions, hands-on networking, and in-depth breakouts to address the state of Amazon mapping and to help organize the initial EA Amazon scan. Throughout the days there will be the opportunity to meet with industry leaders, sponsors, and other attendees in a proximity-audio-based networking platform. Day One will focus on understanding the current state of Amazon mapping along with outlining the contributions that Earth Archive data can make in improving current understandings of Amazonian socio-natural systems. Participants will explore technological issues in Amazon mapping, and present regionally specific reports on work from the nine countries that encompass the Amazon Basin. Day Two will focus on the broader contributions that an open-source Amazon scan can make to an array of sciences, policymaking, and other related fields. The Earth Archive wants to show how geospatial data can help build social resilience, conservation issues, empowering indigenous communities, support ecosystem services, and ecological resilience.
The goal according to the organizers is to create ‘an unprecedented scientific effort to create a digital twin of the entire surface of the Earth and everything on it before it’s too late’. Earth Archive’s mission is to create a baseline record of the earth as it is today to more effectively mitigate the climate crisis. Also, to build a virtual, open-source planet accessible to all scientists so we can better understand our world. Then, to preserve a record of the Earth’s landscapes for humanity so we can study & recreate our lost heritage. This year’s EA Congress is made possible by Applanix (Supporter Sponsor), Esri, the OGC, WGIC (Supporting Organizations), RIEGL (Champion Sponsor), Trimble and Voxelmaps (Advocate Sponsors), among many others. Apart from the fire-side chat with WGIC’s Executive Director Barbara Ryan, there are presentations by WGIC Members David Gadsden, Director of Conservation Solutions, Esri, Peter Atalla, Founder and CEO, VoxelMaps, Inc and WGIC Partner Nadine Alameh, CEO, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).
The Earth Archive Congress