The Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA), in conjunction with QUT, will be hosting a breakfast meeting with Dr Tim Foresman from the US.
Dr Foresman is a senior Science, Engineering and Education leader, from the US, who has been very instrumental in leading the technology in the use of scientific visualisation and spatial information systems.
Back to the Future
Dr Foresman will present a Kantian appreciation of knowledge acquisition and the recognition that we have reached ten percent market saturation promotes a consideration to the benefits of spatial systems design, user requirements, and a dialogue regarding the future with a spatially enabled society. Dr Foresman will share a distinctive perspective of the spatial industry and technology ranging from pre-ArcInfo through Google Earth and into the hands of smartphones and citizen scientists.
Dr Tim Foresman has had the Forrest Gumpian good fortune to be present at interesting milestones in the development of today’s spatial industry. As a young research scientist-engineer, he led the Department of Defense bench tests for spatial information systems that resulted in ESRI’s selection in 1980 for the US Marine Corps land use management system. This GIS system remains operational 35 years later as the GeoFidelis program. He led the introduction of ERDAS into the US government for remote sensing on a PC in the early 1980s.
His many exploits, including NASA, the US EPA- Las Vegas, the University of Maryland, and the United Nations, are captured in his book, The History of Geographic Information Systems (Prentice Hall). On the international scene, he led the UN Environment Programme’s development of spatial information systems for early warning, disaster relief, and environmental assessments, which included providing Google Earth with their first contract for the World Summit on Sustainable Development. He is a founding member of the International Society for Digital Earth. His latest textbook, Visualizing Physical Geography (Wiley Pub) embeds spatial awareness and tools throughout collegiate Earth science curriculum. He continues to view space, or spatial, as the final frontier. Today, he works on interesting projects as president of the International Centre for Remote Sensing Education and the Earth Party.
Date: 22 November 2013
Time: 7:00 – 9:00am
Venue: Rydges, South Bank, Brisbane
