FIG WW25/Locate25 program outline released

By jnally on 13 March, 2025

The long-awaited, wide-ranging program for the combined FIG Working Week 2025 and Locate25 conferences, to be held in Brisbane in April, has been released.

The program showcases the international flavour of the joint event, with extended coverage of topics that are not usually so prominent at local conferences, but which reflect the nature of the work done by the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG).

The main part of the event will be held over three days from Monday, 7 April to Wednesday, 9 April.

The event will kick off on the Monday with a morning plenary session dedicated to the event’s main theme, ‘Geography and the Geospatial Ecosystem: Enabling Opportunities for a Digital Generation’.

That will be followed by multiple concurrent streams, covering the following topics:

Women’s land rights and access to land
Private sector contribution to the SDG (SDG TF)
Stray’n land administration innovations
Diversity and inclusion task force sustaining geospatial innovation – The hope of the young surveying explorer
Standards in surveying – FIG Standards Network
Transparency in the real estate market, valuation and trust
SIDS / AP CDN – Geodesy positioning nations for the future: Joint Session with Commission 5 Positioning and Measurement
Scanning, BIM and virtual reality
Climate and sustainable development (Climate TF)
Leveraging geospatial intelligence for spatial intelligence
Remote sensing and Earth observation
Digital transformation, land management and NSDIs
Member associations forum (including Regional Bodies Forum)
Platinum member session; Esri: AI and GIS – Transforming the geospatial landscape
Hydrography for a sustainable future: Solutions for people, planet and progress
Digital innovation, collaboration and beyond: joint FIG/ISPRS session
Next-generation infrastructure: Sustainability and smart solutions
SIDS / AP CDN – Proactive capability for disaster and resilience; Joint Session with Climate Compass TF
Monitoring of civil infrastructure and natural phenomena
Digital Atlas of Australia session
Spatial planning and disaster risk management
Spatial data infrastructure and standards

Tuesday morning’s plenary session will address the topic of ‘Rethinking Gender and Climate Change: Implications for Land Use Planning and Resettlement’. That will be followed by three sessions of speaker presentations:

Land policy and legal perspectives
Crucial role of governments to achieve SDGs (SDG TF)
Reference frames and dynamic datums: Moving with the times
Platinum member session: Leica: ‘Grow your business’
Commission 1 Technical Session
Resilient champions of surveying history 1
Geospatial information management and infrastructure development: joint session with Commission 3 Spatial Information
Innovations and AI in the field of property values
Climate and disaster (Climate TF)
Gender and land in spatial governance
Innovations in urban planning and land management
3D land administration and LADM
FIG Director General’s Forum; Multi-purpose positioning infrastructure: Greater than the sum of their parts
French Session 1
A special focus on business Session 1
Resilient champions of surveying history 2
Growing the capacity of the land surveying and administration profession: Joint session with Commission 7 Land Administration
Mobile technologies for inclusive sidewalk mapping, or Mapping sidewalks for all: Mobile tech and community empowerment 1
Empowering change: Harnessing open geospatial tools for global impact (YSN)
Land management and spatial governance
Professional education: Learning methods and styles in surveying education
Fit-for-purpose land administration
IGNITE Plenary Speaker 2
Innovative applications of cost-effective positioning in mitigating the impact of disasters and climate
French Session 2
A special focus on business Session 2
Resilient champions of surveying history 3
SIDS Meeting and Talanoa 1 regional capacity development Asia-Pacific / Americas SIDS
Mobile technologies for inclusive sidewalk mapping, or Mapping sidewalks for all: Mobile tech and community empowerment 2
Innovative approaches to valuing unregistered land: Collaborative strategies for a resilient future – Partner session with GLTN (in collaboration with RICS)
Digital transformation and spatial planning towards climate resilience
Platinum member session: CHC Navigation; Technology benefits of hybrid GNSS receivers

The third day’s morning plenary will be all about ‘Ice Sheets and Future Shorelines: The Necessary Geodetic Revolution’. That will be followed by the afternoon’s speaker presentations, as follows:

Resilient PNT: What, why, how, who and when?
The nexus between SDGs and professional education in geospatial world – (SDG TF)
Marine cadastre and applications
Is the future of our profession a coherent and merged approach? (joint FIG/WGIC session)
Sustainability, climate change and real estate values
Indigenous mapping
SIDS Meeting and Talanoa 2 regional capacity development Asia-Pacific / Americas
Session with World Bank
TF diversion paper session
Platinum member session: Trimble; Transforming industries through Trimble technology
Geospatial technologies for climate resilience
An analogue Earth in digital models: Capturing the world around us
Academic forum
Fit-for-purpose land administration II
She Maps teachers’ drone session 1
Digital transformation strategies in the construction industry
Advancing hydrospatial intelligence: Innovation and resilience in the digital era
Regional capacity development meeting ARN
Cadastral digitisation and automation
The role of surveyors in fostering recovery and reconstruction in crisis-affected contexts: Changed mindsets and successful practices – Partner session with GLTN
Surveying and geospatial opportunities with First Nation peoples: Joint session AP CDN and Commission 7
Artificial intelligence and automation in geospatial applications
Geoinformation for Sustainable Development Goals
Professional education: Learning methods and styles in surveying education
AI and analytics in land administration
She Maps teachers’ drone session 2
Applications and challenges of mobile mapping
Strengthening capacity and capability of young surveyors for a better future; joint session (YSN/C1/AP CDN)
New methods and techniques to improve measurement accuracy and understanding of relative sea level rise and its consequences
Modern infrastructure development: Innovations and monitoring techniques
Property extraction and taxation: Compensation, transparency and trust