Switzerland

Under the theme, "Taking the Pulse of the Planet”, 275 members of the GEO community, from more than 45 countries, will chart the next steps in creating and implementing a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) during the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Eleventh Plenary Session to be held on 12-14 November in Geneva, Switzerland. One highlight of the conference will be announcement of the winners of the GEO Appathon, a global “app” development competition built on the 80 million-plus resources currently available through GEOSS. The Appathon attracted 250 competitors from 50 countries and will generate easy-to-use decision tools for mobile devices and computers. GEO’s mandate is to harness the power of Earth observations from sources across the globe to provide more and better information to leaders in government, industry, and civil society confronting fundamental decisions affecting people and societies world-wide. Key GEO initiatives that will be highlighted during…

Formerly called the GIS for the United Nations and International Community Conference, this revamped event explores how Esri’s ArcGIS platform empowers the international community to achieve the global goals. The event is co-hosted by UNITAR’s Operational Satellite Application Programme (UNOSAT), and Esri.

This year’s conference features an engaging, interactive environment that drives collaboration with your peers – and focuses on applying GIS to: people, planet, prosperity, and peace. There will be sessions with topics of interest to management, technical workshops, and a new track engaging the private sector in using GIS for sustainability. Join us for an inspiring Opening session followed by peer-to-peer exchanges, lightning sessions, and networking events—all created to empower your organization to achieve your goals. With an agenda full of…

AI for Good is the United Nations’ leading platform for harnessing artificial intelligence to address global challenges. It brings together a diverse network of stakeholders, including policymakers, researchers, industry leaders, and civil society, to explore and promote the responsible and impactful use of AI technologies.

Organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in partnership with over 40 UN sister agencies and co-convened with the Government of Switzerland, AI for Good aims to accelerate progress on sustainable development goals by identifying innovative AI applications, building global skills and standards, and fostering collaborative partnerships.

The platform promotes the development of AI standards to drive innovation and digital transformation while ensuring safety, fairness, and inclusivity. It also supports AI education and capacity-building, equipping people around the world with the…

The increasing number and intensity of natural disasters in the past few years have had severe consequences in terms of human lives that were impacted, but also in terms of structural damage and economic losses. In years to come, extreme events will no longer be exceptions; therefore, it is essential for sovereign territories in the Caribbean region to strengthen both their preparedness and response capacities to efficiently cope with future disaster events.

Geospatial information technology including satellite imagery analysis and data visualization play a vital role in understanding the geographic extent and severity of catastrophic events. Nevertheless, the ability of national and regional authorities as well as disaster management experts to seamlessly collect, integrate, analyze and distribute geospatial information in a comprehensible format to support evidence-based decision making remains a challenge that needs to be addressed with ad-hoc training and capacity…

The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GP) is the global forum where participants take stock of progress, share new knowledge, exchange best practice and discuss the latest developments and trends in reducing disaster risk.

The UN General Assembly recognizes the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction as a critical mechanism to review progress on the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. At the Platform, governments, the UN system and all stakeholders get together to identify ways to further accelerate the implementation of the Sendai Framework. Since 2007, seven sessions of the Global Platforms have taken place. The outcomes are recognized by the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council as a contribution to the deliberations of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) and thus, contributing to risk-informed implementation and monitoring of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

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The aim of the course is to enable participants to work with basic GIS tools and methodologies in preparation of disaster related maps in support of emergency response operations. A central part of the course involves collecting pre and post disaster baseline data from web sources, preparing, and analysing and creating situation maps to support emergency response. Hands on experience with the field data collection tools like GPS, PDA and UAV will also be part of the course. 

The learning objectives of the training are: define and describe basic concepts and terminology related to geospatial information technology; apply basic methods and functionalities of GIS software (ESRI ArcGIS) to manage and analyse spatial data; undertake the process of map-making…