International Symposium on Digital Earth

ISDE5 - NextNow and Planetwork

2007-03-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

March 21, 2007

Members of the ISDE5 planning team met at the wonderful offices of NextNow in Berkeley. In attendance was Jim Fournier, founder of Planetwork, who lent a hand in reviewing and discussing the event logistics and goals. Jim brought a wealth of hands-on knowledge.

Planetwork explores how the creative application of digital tools – visualization technologies, software, and the Internet, among others – can open new possibilities for positive global change.

Planetwork operates as a convening organization, gathering people from a wide variety of disciplines and vocations – science, technology, activism, business, the arts - creating international forums where people from distinctly different backgrounds can meet, find common ground, inspire each other, wrestle with and envision answers to solving some of our most pressing global issues.

ISDE5 joins forces with Bay Area Bioneers

2007-03-25T21:21:00.000-07:00

March 21, 2007

ISDE5 secretariat held a planning meeting with famed local group Bioneers. The goal of the meeting was to define how best to work together to promote the upcoming event, maximize outreach and leverage their many years of experience with conference broadcasting.

The Collective Heritage Institute, aka Bioneers, was founded in 1990, when Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons assembled Bioneers for the first annual Bioneers conference, a gathering of scientific and social innovators who have demonstrated visionary and practical models for restoring the Earth and communities.

Those who attended this energizing meeting include (From left to right) Kai Huschke - Bioneers, Bill Daul - NextNow, Teo Grossman - Bioneers, Kristin Rothballer - Bioneers, Brian Hamlin - Planetwork, Glen Lauder - ISDE5 NZ, Rebecca Sheranian - ISDE5, Joe Skopek - ISDE5, Carl Chenery - ISDE5 NZ, Liz Cunningham - Bioneers, Tim Foresman - ISDE5.

Digital Earth Science Gets Own Journal

2007-01-25T14:42:00.000-08:00

The new INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIGITAL EARTH will be launched this year by Taylor and Francis, Publisher under agreement with the International Society of Digital Earth. The Intention is to have the first issue come out (Vol.1 No.1) early next year. It will initially be a Quarterly publication. Details on submissions will be debuted at the June meeting in Berkeley.

The second issue will highlight many of the contributions from the 5th International. Symposium on Digital Earth held in San Francisco this June. This presents a bright future for academicians and researchers who wish to share their efforts in this budding new technology arena. Professor Guo Huadong will be the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal. The ISDE Secretariat has just hired some new young staff to help with the work of starting the Journal.

2007-01-24T14:31:00.000-08:00

An innovative initiative to establish a global ranking of the most peaceful nations is being launched in April by founder Steve Killelea and the statistical team from The Economist Group. Steve was driven to creating the World Peace Index (WPI) after he posed the simple questions of which countries were the most peaceful and which were not. As an international businessman, who successfully launched two major software firms from Sydney, Australia, he pondered this question among many experts, all of whom could not provide an objective and satisfactory response. Killelea is funding the initial creation of the WPI, while amassing a host of institutions and individuals, including the Dalai Lama, the Sydney Peace Foundation, the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, Columbia University, and the Alliance for Peacebuilding. The sustainability of the initiate is critical to acceptance of the Index as a rallying point for internal and international dialogs. Killelea believes that the Digital Earth community is crucial to disseminate the WPI, but more importantly to create an upwelling of local information for updating and fine-tuning the WPI. Local relevance is mandatory for usefulness. Mr. Killelea will be keynoting this revolutionary World Peace Index at the ISDE5.

NOAA’s chief, Admiral Lautenbacher, Keynotes in Berkeley

2007-01-23T13:03:00.000-08:00

Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher has had a distinguished career in both the US Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA leadership has proven critical to an array of programs regarding rigorous and scientific sampling and monitoring of the Earth’s systems, at a time when NASA has been reducing its Earth Observation programs. NOAA’s leadership is proving critical for all nations as it helps to lead the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) alliances and continue with the critical measurements for fisheries, oceanography, weather, and climate change. Admiral Lautenbacher will be able to provide an expert perspective on the challenges and achievements in scientific mapping, modeling, and monitoring of the Earth’s systems and the critical role of the satellite systems and programs to provide content for the Digital Earth community. The Admiral will speak on Friday, June 8^th in Berkeley.

Google Earth Connects with Communities

2007-01-17T12:53:00.000-08:00

Google Earth was well represented at the American Geophysics Union meeting in San Francisco (Dec 11-15) along with a gathering of virtual globe scientists. Michael T. Jones, Google Earth’s Chief Technology Officer, remarked on the impressive array of scientific studies that are using Google Earth and other spinning globe technologies (e.g., NASA’s World Wind, Microsoft’s Virtual Globe, ESRI’s ArcGeoExplorer). He stated that a major challenge for the software vendors was to understand better who the communities are that are using these digital earth technologies and what will be their requirements in the future as they continue to harness these tools for their communities. Google has joined the ISDE5 as a Golden Sponsor, in part, to better understand these questions and to help promote increased communications amongst the user communities. Mr. Jones was quick to point out that while Google Earth enjoys a healthy market share in the Digital Earth community, he feels that all of the major vendors need to address the collaborative issues of our science and citizen communities if we are to look towards a better future.

United Nations Environmental Program and Global Change Atlas

2007-01-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

UNEP was the first agency to contract with Google Earth in 2001 (when they were known as Keyhole Technologies, Inc.) to explore the management and display of global environmental conditions. One of the key projects that was envisioned by UNEP for sharing with the world was a global change atlas. The Atlas (One Planet Many People: Atlas of Our Changing Environment, 2005) has proven to be the number one (#1) all time seller for environmental books in the history of the United Nations. But that wasn’t enough considering how many people need to become involved to stop the negative impacts on the Earth’s systems and to begin on the path to sustainability and preservation of biodiversity and ecological goods and services. Here, Google Earth joined with UNEP again to create a special web site for the contents of the Atlas geo-referenced on Google Earth’s tessellation engine. Dr. Ashbindu Singh will be presenting this fascinating story to the gathered crowds during the ISDE5 in Berkeley, California

Yukon Indians Assume Governance Role for International Watershed

2006-12-05T12:59:00.000-08:00

The tribal leaders who run the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council (www.yritwc.org) are celebrating their 10^th year of the 50 year mission. The mission is simple: to drink from the Yukon River. To reach that goal, they have assumed major responsibilities for sample, monitoring and training on water quality from both the US Geological Survey and the US Environmental Protection Agency. A result of their mission and mandate, they have reinvigorated regional dialogs based on millennia-tested tribal protocols that have proven both culturally sensitive and effective. Beginning June of this year, after the ISDE5, the Yukon tribes will embark on a Healing Journey down the Yukon River to continue with the bi-annual village dialogs. As each village is engaged, it is proposed to debut each village as a unique site using Digital Earth technology. The Healing Journey will celebrate in mid-August at Saint Mary’s, Alaska, near the terminus of the river. Yukon tribal chiefs will be in Berkeley at the ISDE5 to share their experiences in using modern technologies for stewardship of their river.

UNEP-Google Connects Again with Hanke & Company

2006-11-13T14:02:00.000-08:00

Back in 2001, when John Hanke and his small crew of capable programmers were creating Keyhole’s Earthviewer, I had the pleasure, as part of my UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) activities to execute the first contract to display this digital earth technology at the 5^rd African GIS Conference in Nairobi (see first Keyhole Africa image).

John Hanke is now director of Google Earth. It was good to hear John on the Kojo Nandi Show on WKMU radio (NPR) in DC this Monday (13th) announcing the special Google Earth partnership with UNEP (again) to load up a special mash-up using the images from the One Planet Many People atlas. The UNEP atlas depicts 30 years of land cover dynamics based on Landsat imagery for 100 sites around the planet. Dr. Ashbindu Singh assisted me in 2002 initiate the UNEP atlas project that relied heavily on the UNEP co-location partnership at the USGS EROS Data Center in sunny Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The importance of this

UNEP-Google mash-up is the proof-of-concept for creating Earth History views for every meter of the planet that can allow any Earth citizen to see the rapid changes affecting us all. Now all we need is to get the citizens and scientists living in these dynamic hotspots to create community dialogs and action to address these negative issues associated with our global changing geographies. A great challenge for the Digital Earth community.

Planetwalker Joins DE Journey

2006-11-01T11:22:00.000-08:00

“How to change your world one step at a time,” is the subtitle to Planetwalker, a book by Dr. John Francis.

John, has called Point Reyes, California home for the past 25 years but more often than not, he has been on foot travelling the country on an environmental odyssey that has proven positively infectious to all he meets. I had the pleasure of spending the last day of October with him and his young son, Samuel, to discuss his plans for his next journey. He explained that both a foot trip from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania beginning on Earth Day and a canoe journey beginning in late June in Alaska with many indigenous tribes that will end in St. Mary’s in August will highlight next year’s adventures. His message is one of dialog, communication, and reaching out to all our communities to recognize our mutual responsibilities for stewardship of the planet’s resources and love of our fellow citizens. He is committed to engaging the Digital Earth technologies to enable others to follow his travels and hopes that this will lead to improved inter-community communications and knowledge sharing as we all cope with the coming global change challenges. Hollywood has started work on a movie about his life and experiences derived from his book. We are thrilled to have Dr. John Francis join the Digital Earth team to help us chart a better path for the application of Digital Earth technology and community vision.

Gaia Meets Digital Earth

2006-09-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

Gaia represents a compelling vision and metaphor for a living, organic planet that is more than the sum of its parts. Raised into our consciousness by Dr. James Lovelock, this conceptual brainchild has been further elucidated by biologists like Dr. Lynn Margulis who have discovered the inherent capacity of the planet to adjust homeostatic conditions with biological systems, akin to a living being. A gathering of Gaia enthusiasts will meet in October in northern Virginia (http://www.gaiatheory.org/) to work out the science and application domains of the Gaia theory for very pragmatic reasons; preservation of life on Earth. Martin Ogle will be helping to lead this group in preparation for their input to the ISDE5 gathering. What will this do? Matching Gaia theory with Digital Earth performance portends an extremely rich field for modelling and assessing our collective futures.

Digital Earth '06 - New Zealand Media

2006-09-02T06:38:00.000-07:00

Here are a few links to media reports from the successful Digital Earth '06 Summit in Auckland, New Zealand.

"The Long Emergency" 29 August 2006 (Interview with James Kunstler, Campbell Live, TV3)

"The Fossil Fuel Crisis" 29 August 2006 (Interview with James Kunstler, Rural Report, Radio NZ)

"Digital Earth scientist tackles climate change delusionists" 29 August 2006 (Interview with Tim Foresman on KiwiFM)

http://www.wammo.co.nz/ (Available as podcast soon)

"Earth Simulator: mirroring the world to forecast the future" 30 August 2006 (Interview with Prof. Tetsuya Sato, Computerworld)

"Digital Auckland" 30 August 2006 (Interviews with Tim Foresman, Glen Lauder, Carl Chenery on Checkpoint, Radio NZ)

"Digital Auckland concept launched" 30 August 2006 (TVNZ News web site)

New Zealand Summit

2006-08-31T13:10:00.000-07:00

What do you get when the Prime Minister, the Mayor of Auckland, scores of other mayors, and council members open your Digital Earth Summit? You get the political will do what is necessary to build your digital infrastructure and focus your nation’s attention onto the path for sustainability. The Summit (www.digitalearth.org.nz) was an amazing event generating enormous enthusiasm and interest into the questions behind linking advanced DE technologies to the challenges facing communities, cities, and nations in the waves of global change. Prime Minister Helen Clark provided a brilliant open speech unwavering in recognition of the global change realities and the need to harness an informed and connected citizenry to match the challenges ahead. Auckland’s Mayor Richard Hubbard who help host the event was forthright in recognizing the sober perceptions of what government can do and how it must partner with industry, academia, and citizen’s groups to lower our ecological footprints and to stimulate bold new enterprises under the Digital Earth umbrella for our future coping strategies. New Zealand and Auckland have contributed a significant boost to our understanding of the practical aspects of bringing Digital Earth down to Earth for sustainability issues.

World’s Largest Supercomputer Offered to Digital Earth

2006-08-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

A captivating view of the world’s largest supercomputer, the Earth Simulator, located just outside of Tokyo, Japan, was presented to an international gathering of the Digital Earth Summit on Sustainability. Dr. Tetsuya Sato, director of the Earth Simulator, demonstrated the various climate and weather modelling capacities of the world’s largest computer and its ability to provide visualized perspectives of complex Earth system processes (http://www.es.jamstec.go.jp/esc/eng/). As if this wasn’t enough for the Auckland gathering, Dr. Sato made the offer to host whatever computation needs Digital Earth may have on the Japanese cybernetic leviathan. To this effort, Dr. Sato has agreed to co-lead with the US supercomputer network to provide the cyber backbone for the Digital Earth enterprise’s efforts. The unveiling of this incredibly generous offer will begin with focused communication for Digital Auckland and Digital New Zealand leading to a new understanding of our framework resources at the San Francisco gathering.

Youth Rock Kiwi Summit

2006-08-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt, the greatest contribution to the success of the Digital Earth Summit in Auckland was the input and participation of one hundred members of the younger generation, whose sobriquet the Now Generation, changed the dynamics of an already connected audience. Ranging from 17 to 25 years old, these thoughtful and enthusiastic participants began by peppering the older generation with pragmatic questions ranging from where the planetary systems were heading to why New Zealand would decommission railroads to be overrun with carbon spewing automobiles. The Digital Earth community has been blessed with this infusion of talent and intellect that is betting their planet on collective ways to sustain life and protect the ecological goods and services. And they plan to accomplish this with a flair for also incorporating more humane aspect of civilization; jobs, community-cohesion, art, music, and dance. This group will have a profound impact on the maturation and implementation of ISDE5. Clever readers will begin checking out their nascent dialog on this topic (www.thelongsong.com).

Peace Mapping Joins Digital Earth

2006-08-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

While War Mapping has been a favorite of the current administration, a group of entrepreneur spirited individuals have been investigating the promise of Peace Mapping. After all, if you can map peace how can we ever expect to find it? The Club of Rome had joined with Astrid Stuckelberger, of the Society for Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) ( astrid.stuckelberger@sgg-ssg.ch) and Elly Pradervand, Women's World Summit Foundation (WWSF) (wwsf@wwsf.ch) to promote an enhanced understanding and appreciation of the prowess and potential for peace mapping initiatives (http://www.dcaf.ch/wdp/). Ambassador John McDonald, Institute for Multi-Track Diplomancy (www.imtd.org) is co-leading the Peace Mapping committee to bring lifetime of experience in conflict resolution to this high-priority arena. If Digital Earth can not contribute significantly to the challenge of defining the constiuent parts for social decline and dysenfrachisment as well as pathways for peaceful transitions to sustainable communities, then why bother. Peace Mapping presentations may prove to be one of the most important contributions to the San Francisco gathering.

Indigenous People and Communities

2006-08-27T12:53:00.000-07:00

A convergence of talent and expertise has entered the Digital Earth world with David Wortley (De Montfort University dwortley@dmu.ac.uk) helping to lead the committee for connecting villages and communities. Wortley will be supported in this effort by leading representatives of Native Americans (James Rattling Leaf), Samis and indigenous artic peoples, as well as communities from Central America and western China. A seismic shift in the use of Digital Earth technologies is rapidly being expressed throughout the globe often outside the coverage of slick tabloids and corporate media outlets. This exciting group of folks will be faced with the Solomon-esque challenge of selecting which groups can be highlighted for the world stage at next June’s event. One thing is for certain, the word will be a bit smaller, and richer, as a result of Wortley and the team’s efforts.

ESRI User Conference - San Diego, California

2006-08-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

"Communicating our World" was the message Jack Dangermond, President of ESRI, presented to the opening plenary. "Our world needs better understanding, and GIS is the medium that helps us communicate and understand our world."

One impressive innovation ESRI techs demoed was the GDP History Viewer working with the animation and video capabilities of ArcGIS 9.2. A real world application showed historical changes in statistics of children afflicted by asthma. Another dataset showed historical data about air quality in the areas where these children reside, and yet another dataset showed addresses of afflicted children in proximity to freeways. Bringing the datasets together in GIS to produce an animated historical map that showed changes in asthma cases, air quality, and freeway exhaust made health correlations obvious.

(Copy from ESRI UC website)

UC Santa Barbara and the "All-O-Sphere"

2006-08-15T15:07:00.000-07:00

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, a new dimension is added to our 3-D world in the very near future. On August 3rd, Professor Keith Clarke of the Geography Department at UCSB gave me a sneak preview of the 3-story spherical high-tech facility, the Allosphere, which incorporates state-of-the-art nanotechnology surface materials and sound (500 individual speakers and sub-woofers) to create a multimedia immersive laboratory for interactive computing and scientific data exploration (allosphere-info@mat.ucsb.edu).

An ambitious research agenda includes use new modes for “gaining insight and developing bodily intuition about environments into which the body cannot venture,” using geo-spatial sciences, as well as of “immersion-based entertainment, fusing future art, architecture, music, media, games, and cinema,” as an excellent example of the 3-D digital earth world defined in Gore’s now famous speech.

This technology will augment Santa Barbara’s already stellar work in digital earth knowledge nets and libraries under Mike Goodchild’s mentoring.

Check out the allosphere here: LINK

Virtual Globes in Boulder Joins Digital Earth

2006-08-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

A collection of spinning globe enthusiasts gathered in Boulder in early July to share science experiences and knowledge. Led by Matt Nolan www.earthslot.org from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, a group of over 50 scientists exchanged results from their use of 3-D tessellation engines (ArcGeoExplorer, GeoFusion, Google Earth, Virtual Earth, and World Wind) for a range of projects from melting glaciers to bird influenza in Hong Kong.

These brilliant displays of the earliest explorations into the real-world science applications of spinning globes is a harbinger for the incredible array of displays planned for San Francisco. Indeed, the 2nd Annual Virtual Globes Workshop will be held in conjunction with next year’s Digital Earth Symposium.

UC Berkeley Venue

2006-08-15T14:59:00.000-07:00

The science and technology (Part 1) of the conference will be well served by the hosting in Wheeler Hall of the University of California at Berkeley. This full service venue was arranged through collaboration with the International Areas and Studies program and with the Office of the Chancellor for Science and Technology in early August.

Chinese researchers held the China-U.S. Climate Change Forum this past May to forge closer ties between U.C. Berkeley and China by bringing together key experts on important international and bilateral issues. With China’s leadership behind the ISDE5, the selection of Berkeley makes good sense and will continue with multi-lateral international dialogs of significance.

Imaging Notes to Lead ISDE5 Media

2006-08-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

When the media is on your side the winds blow more kindly. Publisher Myrna Yoo of Imaging Notes (www.imagingnotes.com) and Blueline Publishing has partnered with the ISDE5 Secretariat to offer vendors and authors an unprecedented package for the San Francisco event and beyond. Beginning with the winter edition, a new section will be created for Digital Earth and continued with each edition. In addition, the summer issue of Imaging Notes will be dedicated to the ISDE5 meeting. Leading vendors will be able to avail themselves of a package deal that will incorporate one-year’s worth of advertising, including guess editorials, and symposium support. This media package will be viewed as the incubator environment for savvy businesses to capitalize on the increasing interest in Digital Earth and the rapidly growing community of governments, industry, academics, and citizens. Those with newsworthy input for the Digital Earth enterprise are encourage to contact Ms. Yoo for more information regarding this media package and opportunities to contribute articles of interest.

Earth Observation Team Leaders

2006-08-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

Professor John Townshend, Chairman, Department of Geography, University of Maryland, and Ms. Nancy Colleton, president Institute for Global Environmental Strategies have accepted leadership of the Earth Observation committee. Townshend’s stellar career in remote sensing and pioneering efforts to create the web-based Global Land Cover Facility (http://glcf.umiacs.umd.edu) has help to advance the Earth Observation community into increased collaboration. Ms. Colleton has been leading the industry and NGO participation in the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and is therefore a pivotal player in aligning Digital Earth with the various user community trajectories. This world-class team signifies solid integration of the remote sensing community for the ISDE5 event.

San Diego State University Visualization Center Adds Supercomputer to Network

2006-08-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

Our mission to San Diego included a day at the Visualization Center where guru John Graham demonstrated extreme competence in applying the prowess of the San Diego Super Computer to the concepts and applications of the Digital Earth crowd. Professor Eric Frost, a co-director of the laboratory and Graham were in preparations for the Strong Angel III workshop and able to show off a set of very effective disaster response scenarios bringing together disparate remote sensing, topographic, and field data into a comprehensive decision support system. The elegance of their work is that the viability of extremely light clients to access the visualized information streamed over the web. Frost and Graham have agreed to support the ISDE5 event and Graham further promised to help lead a supercomputer backbone for the development of both the Digital Earth Exchange and host multiple “spinning globe” applications and data (e.g., Geofusion, World Wind, ArcGeoExplorer, Google, etc.).

Institute for the Future Scientist Mike Liebhold Collaborates for ISDE5

2006-08-03T13:08:00.000-07:00

Palo Alto’s IFTF is not known to dwelling in the past and so it was a welcome addition to the ISDE5 team to discover the brilliant support of IFTF senior researcher, Mike Liebhold (www.iftf.org) . Mike’s brain simply works better than most when contemplating where we are going and how we are going into the future. Mike hosted a Digital Earth orientation meeting in June at the IFTF headquarters just outside the Stanford University campus that brought together an incredible collection of technology pioneers, movers, and shakers. Dr. Liebhold will continue to be a key player in helping to connect technology innovators into the Digital Earth community to capture the tremendous intellectual resources for our collective enterprise on Spaceship Earth.

ECAI Confirms Interest

2006-08-03T12:52:00.000-07:00

The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative represents a consortium of architects, archaeologist, and librarians whose collective mission is to capture in rich 3-D form, the visualized creation of past events in space and time (ecaiweb@uclink.berkeley.edu and www.ecai.org). ECAI uses time and space to enhance understanding of past human cultures. With ECAI firmly set at UC Berkeley coincident with the ISDE5 venue setting, we can expect to benefit significantly from the experiences over the past few years. ECAI has been addressing technology infrastructure, creation of online projects and publications, developing standards and best practices, and a litany of collaboration issues that will provide excellent road maps for the Digital Earth community. We can easily envision an new and exciting Digital Earth with the augmentation of expertly created, rich visualization experiences for discovering more about our historic human cultural legacies.

Geo-Diva Blesses ISDE5

2006-08-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

Bonnie DeVarco has been dubbed the Geo-Diva for Digital Earth by an august group of people who have followed and participated in her pioneering efforts to harness visualization technologies and various versions of digital earths for improving life on the planet. DeVarco, often accompanied by her SGI guru partner Tony, has been networking the best and brightest over the past ten years to get technologies up and running for industry and academics. Sitting at the nexus of various technical and social networks, Bonnie has been instrumental in delving deeply into the intellectual foundations of gee-whiz technology to create a solid framework from which to perceive the many modern wonders. Her work as a Buckminster Fuller scholar finds her at the Stanford University Fuller archives uncovering new revelations as to what Bucky was thinking when he described the Geoscope and resource gaming strategies. Ms. DeVarco has proven to be a deep pool of understanding and vision for the Digital Earth community attracting leading figures in the advance-technology community as well as key players of the futurists and humanities. DeVarco will be presenting a special Buckminster Fuller program at the San Francisco gala event.

Google Talks

2006-08-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

Discussions with Google Headquarters leaders are ongoing for possibly hosting a public forum at the world-famous facility in Mountain View. Google has been hosting a variety of innovative gatherings and meetings and the fit would appear to be compatible. A representative from the Google Earth team indicated that a meeting with other senior officials would be set by early fall to workout details for the proposed venue.

Moon-Walker Astronaut Dr. Ed Mitchell to Keynote

2006-07-31T13:02:00.000-07:00

Dr. Mitchell was the sixth man to walk on the moon as part of his Apollo 14 mission (http://www.edmitchellapollo14.com/). As anyone might expect, this adventure significantly impacted his life, but in ways that continue to this day. In Mitchell’s book “The Way of the Explorer,” he explains the consciousness shifting ramifications of his journey, which lead to his founding the Institute of Noetic Sciences (www.ions.org). What does Mitchell think of Digital Earth? In a personal dialog he explains how he believes that humankind is in the path of peril and that only through a significant increase in our collective IQs will we find salvation. Digital Earth is envisioned to provide the mechanisms for collective IQ enhancements, if we can get humankind to drink from this fountain of knowledge. Perhaps the next generation will learn from Mitchell and cooperate on this greatest of human challenges; Mission to Planet Earth.

Buckminster Fuller Institute Joins ISDE5

2006-07-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

Many of us are aware that Bucky Fuller foretold of the advent of a Geoscope or digital earth way back. In fact, according to Fuller scholar, Bonnie DeVarco, Fuller documented these issues in the later 1920s. His career continued to flesh out the efficacies and intellectual intricacies of the 3-dimensional world and ways to improve our spatial and contextual understanding of the parts and the whole. BFI has agreed to join in supporting and participating in next June’s gala event and will be preparing with Ms. DeVarco some very special presentations to unveil a wealth of lesser known details on the great man and his prescience for Digital Earth.

Mouse Inventor Doug Engelbart to Keynote

2006-07-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

In the cat and mouse game of computational advancements, Dr. Doug Engelbart’s name has a secure future. As the inventor of the computer mouse, Dr. Engelbart has been privy to a host of advance ideas and topics that have ended up changing the way we interface with our cybernetic infrastructure. Engelbart continues to push his work ethic, way past conventional retirement age, by showing up daily at his Logitech offices in Fremont working on our collective futures. He is fascinated by the potential for integrating organizational structures and behaviours to capture the human input for a collective democratic experiment in human potential. Engelbart is also of the opinion that humankind is facing a critical juncture that will require an increase in our collective IQ. Again, can Digital Earth meet this mandate or are we just spinning our globes?

Institute for the Future, Palo Alto

2006-06-10T14:14:00.000-07:00

MEETING OVERVIEW

Institute for the Future, Palo Alto
12:00 - 2:00pm

Dr. Tim Foresman and Bonnie DeVarco presented an overview of the history and goals of the Digital Earth and introducing the newest
International Society for the Digital Earth (ISDE)'s 5th Annual Symposium to be held on June 5-8, 2007. They also lead a guided brainstorming with
meeting attendees on the following:

Early PR and Sponsorship Outreach (Partnerships and Support)
Speaker and Participant ideas
Leveraging interest in this event through related conferences this year and through our unique networks
Multi-Node ideas and options for distributed access to the Symposium





















Chuck Stein and Tim Foresman during brainstorm session.

Successful ISDE5 meeting in Santa Cruz

2006-06-10T13:40:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday June 6th there was a presentation and lively meeting in Santa Cruz, CA. Special thanks to our hosts!

Items discussed; the format of a symposium the history of the ISDE and previous conferences.

China, Gore, and DE Confluences

2006-06-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

Last month the very top Chinese scientists, Xu Guanhua (Ministry of Science and Technology) and Lu Yongxiang (Chinese Academy of Sciences) helped celebrate, with a small group of internationals, the launch of the International Society for Digital Earth. Last Wednesday I previewed the Gore movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Next week Where2.0 will host their second workshop on cutting edge spatial IT. Synthesis of these events can be found within the Digital Earth Vision and its movement next seen in Auckland in August and then San Francisco June 2007. Let us consider the null hypothesis that "no other vision or program captures the synergy and integration of myriad technologies and global challenges as well as Digital Earth." Since no one owns Digital Earth, what is the best path to tap into its capacity for coalescing and collating the forces of the future to perhaps help our species survive? Can Digital Earth ever be accepted as a guiding framework for a survival blueprint? Does the "glass-house" principle of "all people watching all things at all times provides the best democratic solutions," really provide the best antidote for the negative societal trends and consequences on Earth? How best should we use our time and energies next year to nurture Digital Earth? If we are not on the best path, we won't last. Until later, Cheers.

Dr. Foresman presents ISDE5 vision in China

2006-05-22T22:59:00.000-07:00

On the occaision of the official launch of International Society for Digital Earth and World Digital Earth Forum ‘06 May 21-22, 2006 Beijing, China.

Thank you honored and distinguished Chinese hosts, members of the new International Society for Digital Earth and fellow citizens of planet Earth.

We live in interesting times, as Dr. Lu Yongxiang has well articulated in his address.
I had the great privilege of being witness to the birth of Digital Earth and now I am proud to be here to witness the first steps taking by this new Society. Indeed, it is a great honor to be a member of the Executive Committee.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan just recently, last Friday, recognized China’s role in promoting world peace and development. And he expects China to play an even greater role in international affairs.

Just as China has recognized a great vision, early articulated in a famous speech by former US Vice-President Al Gore, importantly, China has raised the leadership banner.

The challenges, as echoed by Dr. Lu, from climate change, rapid population expansion, rapid loss of biodiversity, increased pollution, and in attempts to establish a framework for sustainable development will require the best of applications from advanced technology and facilities to communicate with and network all people in all nations.

The Digital Earth Vision and the principles of the Beijing Declaration, establish admirable and lofty goals for addressing the challenges of the future. The formation and founding of the International Society for Digital Earth represents the first great step for a journal of a thousand miles.

I pledge to embrace these goals and principles, as the director-general of the 5th Symposium for Digital Earth to be convened in San Francisco on World Environment Day in 2007. I welcome each and every one of you to come and join with me, or watch via a web-cast here in China, in San Francisco next year.

Reconnaissance to Bay Area in June

2006-05-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

The secretariat team is planning on meeting with folks in the Bay Area, second week in June, to begin identifying key supporters, thinkers, and best organizational constructs for the core program content. Readers are encouraged to contact the secretariat to ensure that we will meet with them during the week of 5 June 2006 (a one year advance party).

Deciding Best Dates

2006-04-23T15:43:00.000-07:00

Currently, the thoughts are leaning towards beginning the ISDE on the 5th of June. This would coincide with World Environment Day. That would be appropriate and perhaps make it easier to coordinate with Gore and other's schedule.

ISDE5 BLOG

2006-04-17T13:23:00.000-07:00

Digital Earth is a global partnership of NGOs, educators, business, and government leaders collaborating to enable future generations unprecedented technical and educational facilities for exploring the Earth, better understanding its systems, and investigating impacts of human activities.

The Digital Earth community is dedicated to building a global commons to promote "down to Earth" solutions supported by cooperative use of standards, databases, analytical and visualization tools that will foster the creation of appropriate applications for a sustainable future.

The 5th International Symposium on Digital Earth will be hosted in San Francisco to provide a bridge for the many components of the Digital Earth vision and bring down to Earth solutions for our collective future.