At the GIS International Forum of GISTC 2023, Ms. Diane Dumashie, President of International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) delivered her closing speech via video call. Below is the full text.
I would say good afternoon in your local time, dear Professor of the Capital Normal University and Chair of the ICA Commission on Education and Training, dear Vice President of the Chinese Society for Geodesy Photogrammetry and Cartography.
Dear honorable guests and the audience, dear international honorable guests, I am told that you have honorable Dr. Edouard from Cote d'Ivoire, CEO of CNTIG and General Secretary of the National Committee for Remote Sensing and Geographical Information, along with President Aldosari from the Saudi Geographical Society. We've also got a group of guests from SPH in South Korea, as well as the lineup, so impressive, innovators from Mexico and Chile, Mr. Garrido, as well as Mr. Martínez. And of course, last but not least, dear organizers, thank you very much for inviting me.
So, dear colleagues, dear ladies and gentlemen, it really is a pleasure for me to briefly address such a distinguished audience as I have just listed on behalf of FIG. We are the International Federation of Surveyors and it's more than 100 members at the last count, so associations throughout the world. And together we represent more than 300,000 surveyors from the land, the built environment and natural resources, all over the world.
So please accept my warm greetings to you all. And I've got to thank you SuperMap international. We met in 2022 in Germany, just after I was elected President, and recently you kindly reached out to me to join you all this afternoon. Unfortunately, my schedule would not allow me to be with you in person this year, but I am really happy to be with you briefly online just to lend my support to you all as you close your program today.
Dear colleagues, your program looks very, very interesting. And with an impressive range of interesting topics covered in the geospatial domain, the organizers should be really congratulated for putting together such a very attractive event. I'm pleased that I noted the Geographic Information System Technology Innovation Center, which sits in the Ministry of Natural Resources of China, is fully behind you and your deliberations today. That's a very good thing. Of course, you have already heard from an impressive range of speakers, which I looked at when I looked at your program and they were touching on topics that the FIG community collectively are also deliberating on.
You discussed, I noticed the role of geodetic and geospatial technologies in various domains, and that includes cadastre, the smart cities, digital twins, construction and many more. But above all, you are looking to the future to leverage the geospatial technology, noting of course, the fundamentals of AI. So, in this regard, the focus of your conference today, the GIS, is so timely cause we all agree that this is an integral part of the digital earth strategy and a focal point of industry concerns. But because the power of geospatial technology continues to be realized across a growing number of industries and applications, the role of the geospatial as well as the survey professional has never, never been so important as it is now.
Collecting GIS data is building the world around us and I am pleased that the current FIG term, my term, our agenda underpins this with a vision that surveyors serve society for the benefit of people, planet and to work in partnerships. Surveying is not only about serving the clients, it's just as well about serving society as we are the recognized experts in the whole scope of land management, land administration, the connected engineering, surveying and mapping activities. And I'd also like not to forget our colleagues in the hydrographic area as well.
But in my mind it is an absolute to continue to build the foundation of our profession and therefore our ongoing relevance to society. So, the importance of building capacity is fundamental, but more importantly, attracting young people into our profession. This is a role carried out by the universities and professional associations together, as well as with the commercial and corporate partners. We really do need to ensure young surveyors are well represented in all our deliberations.
So once again, overviewing your interesting program. I can see that in this context your deliberations today you would have probably advanced discussions of critical importance to the built and natural environment, inspiring positive and sustainable change for a prosperous and inclusive future for our societies. So, for now, I will leave it there.
So dear honorables, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, please accept my apologies for not being with you today. I congratulate the organizers once again for putting together such an important and interesting program. I wish you all the best for continuing to take this agenda forward and look forward to reading about your outcomes. Thank you very much for allowing me to join you today and I'll hand that to you. Thank you.
