FIG Task Force on Geospatial Information Ecosystem

FIG Task Force - 2023-2026

The Role of FIG in International Trends and Future Geospatial Information Ecosystem

The Task Force was established at the FIG Working Week in Orlando, Florida, USA in 2023. The term of this Task Force is 2023-2026. 

This Task Force centred upon the involvement of FIG members in geospatial fields to re-position their international standing and assert the essential relevance of geospatial experts in international markets. The main objectives of the Task Force are to: assess and improve the impact of FIG for its members and partners (existing and new partners); assess and improve the role of FIG in international trends and future geospatial information ecosystem, as well as the role of members in global geospatial market; and provide recommendations for FIG Council to adopt and implement the outcomes of the setout objectives.

Its expected outcome is to reinforce and grow FIG’s influence as a key and influential organization within the global geospatial data ecosystem, and the outputs could include a FIG booklet, series of reports/recommendations/contributions to the development of FIG profession.

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Join the Task Force on LinkedIn

You can follow the task force on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/fig-geospatial-task-force

The Trends and Future Geospatial Information Ecosystem at FIG Working Week 2023

The task force was established at the FIG Working Week 2023 in Orlando, Florida, and its Terms of Reference was approved by FIG General Assembly on 28 May 2023 as well as the appointed chair Abbas Rajabifard.

During the Working Week the FIG Director Generals Forum was contested by the new FIG-Task Force on “The Role of FIG in International Trends and Future Geospatial Information Ecosystem”. Members of the Task Force provided background information, which was followed by a moderated panel discussion, aimed to seek opinions and input from the attending Director Generals.
Opening and Welcome by Daniel Steudler and Abbas Rajabifard
[handouts]
UN-GGIM Perspective on Geospatial Information Trends by Greg Scott
[handouts]
Task Force on “The Role of FIG in International Trends and the Future Geospatial Information Ecosystem” by  Hartmut Müller
[handouts]
Scenario Study on Future Land Administration by Fredrik Zetterquist
Strategy Drivers of Land Administration Authorities in Europe by Kirsikka Riekkinen
[handouts]
Moderated Panel Discussion

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Terms of Reference

1. Background

As the leading and premier international organization representing the interests of surveying, land and geospatial practitioners worldwide, it is essential that FIG continually reviews its role and function to remain relevant, and maintain its international impact while providing services not only to its members but also its global partners. FIG needs to consider its role in relation to its international standing and leadership in the geospatial arena, now and for the future.

In recent years we have seen significant changes in the markets and within the profession. The geospatial industry and land professions are dealing with major global challenges such as rapid urbanisation and the effects of climate change. FIG wishes to examine its role, as well as the functions and competencies of surveyors, to make sure they remain aligned with international trends and domain specific drivers which shape our industry. This will empower FIG to be fit for the future both within the geospatial market and in the wider and emerging digital transformation markets.

FIG will focus on maintaining and enhancing its professional relevance for a wider societal benefit, recognising the pivotal role that geospatial data plays as an enabler particularly in land administration. This is in the context of the UN Sustainability Agenda as well as international trends and emerging geospatial information ecosystem.

FIG needs to identify the current and potential reach and the impact it can contribute to wider geospatial areas such as Big Data and AI. This is a broad agenda and FIG needs to assess how it can work with other organisations, such as UN-GGIM, to improve its impact . The drive is that FIG aims to play a thought leadership role to create a better market for FIG members in emerging geospatial fields.

With this, the Task Force centred upon the involvement of our profession in geospatial fields to re-position its international standing and assert the essential relevance of geospatial experts in international markets. Geospatial data is a component of systems in all sectors. As such, it is expected that other professions will see geospatial as important, but the Task Force aims to secure the role of the geospatial expert in these domains.

The Task Force will be cognisant of what is happening in the FIG commissions, in order to strengthen their roles and capabilities and also avoid duplication. The Task Force will be clear in its purpose and will report to Council and the General Assembly (GA).

2. Objectives of the Task Force

The main objectives of this Task Force are:

•  to assess and improve the impact of FIG for its members and partners (existing and new partners).
• to assess and improve the role of FIG in international trends and future geospatial information ecosystem, as well as the role of members in global geospatial market.
• to provide recommendations for FIG Council to adopt and implement the outcomes of the above objectives.

The Task Force will present periodic reports to Council and other relevant channels on their findings concerning current FIG role in Global Geospatial market trends. The Task Force will undertake its work via a unified, collaborative, transparent and consultative approach together with the FIG members. In this context, the general discussions points can be:

•  What are the strengths of FIG members?
• What do FIG members currently do?
• Why is it relevant?
• How to position FIG members in current international context?
• What is the evidence of benefit of FIG members as we shift to massive, 3D, real-time data underpinning all aspects of our lives?
• Literature review: What is the evidence base?
• Professional assurance of accuracy, precision, knowledge of fit-for-purpose data, privacy/security etc.

3. Terms of References

In the context of its objectives, the Task Force aims to deliver two achievements:

• Assessment and analysis of FIG’s current impact:
  • How is impact currently achieved by partners and members?
  • Investigation of current trends and initiatives
  • Identification of priority areas in-line with FIG Members
• Assessment and review of international trends and future geospatial information ecosystem:
  • Review of FIG’s current and potential partners and activities
  • Mapping of interrelations between FIG commissions, networks and international entities
  • Identification of challenges and opportunities including new regions and markets

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4. Outcomes and Outputs

The outcome for this Task Force is to reinforce and grow FIG’s influence as a key and influential organisation within the global geospatial data ecosystem. This will be delivered through analysis of international trends, identification of areas where FIG can and does have the most impact, and the development of roadmaps to align with FIG members and partners.

Outputs could include…a FIG booklet, series of reports/recommendations/contributions to the development of FIG profession (etc). The details of these outcomes will be listed in the advanced work plan.

5. Pathway and Implementation

A work plan will be created by the Task Force to list the activities and milestones in response to its objectives and deliverables. The Task Force will focus on:

• The current pathways to impact.
• A “SWOT” analysis of the FIG current strategy and operation, its activities with major partners and members, and possible a benchmarking with other organisations including UN-GGIM be performed and involves FIG Council.
• Trend analysis to better understand potential future directions of development and to ascertain the readiness of FIG in this context.
• Mapping of interrelations between FIG commissions, networks, partners, and international entities. • Identification of challenges and opportunities and main international players and authorities including new regions and markets.
• Development and preparation of reports on the Task Force findings, and recommendations to Council.
• The Task Force will complete its work in 3 years and the final FIG Booklet publication be ready for release at the FIG 2025 Working Week in Brisbane.

Whilst the Task Force will have the responsibility for implementing TOR, the team will undertake this via a unified, collaborative, and consultative approach with all FIG members. In other words, the Task Force will identify, consult, and discuss with our internal and external stakeholders what we are doing well, what we can do better, challenges or trends affecting influencing the future, and how to resolve such matters.

6. Proposed Work Plan

With respect to the work plan, it is expected and highly recommended that the Task Force:

• Forms and begins work as soon as possible
• Develop a detailed work plan with expected milestones and deliveries at upcoming annual FIG events and other significant events to address and achieve objectives.
• Develop a detailed work plan that presents ways for transparency and interactions with FIG and its members and other geospatial partners to address and achieve objectives
• Support FIG to asses and improve its role regarding international trends and future geospatial information ecosystem, as well as the role of members in global geospatial market, with the development of an action list with activities for FIG to consider
• Propose methods on how to review the impact of these activities
• The work programme will be done through email, online meetings and where feasible “face to face” meetings will be organised to coincide with FIG related events.

Here is a snapshot of the deliverables and schedule:

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Members of the Task Force

The TF Co-Chairs will be from two different FIG regions. Co-Chairs will be responsible for creating the Work Plan for each year of the TF, as well as a Four-year overall work plan for the TF. Co-Chairs will be responsible for undertaking annual reviews of the TF’s performance and annual reporting to FIG Council. The TF Core Team will consist of a minimum of 8 members. Across these there is a representative from each FIG region, and a fair mixture of Young Surveyors and seasoned surveyors. Core team membership currently stands as:

Prof Abbas Rajabifard (Chair)

Prof Abbas Rajabifard is an internationally recognized scholar and a proud surveyor and a geospatial engineer with over 30 years of experience. He is an active leader in research and development in land administration system modernization, sustainability and resilience.  Prof Abbas is Director of Research Centre for SDIs and Land Administration, and also Discipline Leader for Geomatics at the University of Melbourne. He is also a Member of the United Nations International Advisory Board for Global Geospatial Knowledge and Innovation Centre (UN-GGKIC) and also a Board Member for the United Nations-Academic Network for Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM). Prof Abbas is one the world pioneer technical architect for the development of Digital Twin platform for smart cities and urban analytics. Over the last decade, he has worked on strategic projects in Asia-Pacific (Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, HongKong, China, India, Solomon Islands), Europe, North America, and Latin America regions, where he has developed the strategy, design, and implementation of policies and technologies. Prof Rajabifard has also published widely in the domain of land and location intelligence and smart city solutions.

Dr Kirsikka Riekkinen (Deputy Chair)

Dr. Kirsikka Riekkinen is an assistant professor in land management at Aalto University, Finland. Kirsikka holds a PhD degree in real estate economics since 2014. Her research is focused on land administration and cadastral systems, as well as land consolidation. Kirsikka is currently vice chair of FIG Commission 7

Surv. Adamu Bala (Secretary)

Surv. Adamu Bala has been a Lecturer in the Department of Geomatics, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, since 2018; and presently, a PhD candidate with a major in Surveying and Mapping Sciences and Technology at the China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China. Before then, he had worked with an engineering consultancy firm and a federal government research institute as a Surveyor and a Geoscientist, respectively. Surv. Bala is a mentor at the FIG Africa Regional Network, a member of many professional bodies; a Registered/Licensed Surveyor and also an Examiner with the Surveyors Council of Nigeria. He is equally the Chief Editor of the Geoinformatics Forum Magazine.

He has received numerous recognitions and awards such as the: “2022 FIG-Survey Review Biennial prize”; “2022 Distinguished Young Surveyor Award”; “2022 Young Surveyors’ Academic Scholar with Excellence Award”; “The President of the Nigerian Institution of Surveyors 2023 Merit award”; “Outstanding Participant certificate at the 2023 International Geomatics Summer School at the LIESMARS”; “the xyHt geospatial magazine`s one of the 23 Young Geospatial Professionals to watch in 2023”; “the Geospatial World`s one of the 50 Geospatial Rising Stars for 2023”; “the 2023 ASPRS Student Conference Presentation grant”; "1st prize in the semi-final, and Best Creative project award in the final of the China-Africa Youth Innovation competitions, in Shanghai and Wuhan, respectively" and an also appointed as an International Admission Ambassador of the China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China, 2023. He has attended and fully participated in numerous international conferences, competitions, and also authored and published peer-reviewed research papers in several local and international journals.

Dr Daniel Steudler

Dr Daniel Steudler holds a PhD degree from the University of Melbourne, Australia and is a scientific associate with the Swiss Federal Office of Topography swisstopo, working for the Federal Directorate for Cadastral Surveying. He has been active in FIG-Commission 7 for many years and was chair of the FIG-Task Force on «Spatially Enabled Society». He published widely in the cadastral field and consulted internationally in land administration and cadastral issues. Since March 2015, he is chair of the EuroGeographics "Cadastre and Land Registry" Knowledge Exchange Network. He is Vice-President of FIG in the period 2023-2026.

Prof. Hartmut Müller

Prof Hartmut Müller is professor emeritus+ at University of Applied Sciences Mainz, Germany. He received his diploma and doctoral degree in Geodesy from Karlsruhe University, Germany. Until 2019 he was founding director of Mainz University’s Institute for Spatial Information and Surveying Technology. He serves on editorial boards of journals and book series. His research interests are in the areas of geospatial information management, spatial data infrastructures, and quality of geospatial data. From 2015 to 2018 he was working group chair of FIG International Federation of Surveyors, from 2019 to 2022 commission chair, and from 2021 to 2022 representative of the Advisory Committee of Commission Officers to the FIG Council.

James Norris

James Norris is the International Policy Lead at Ordnance Survey where he works to promote the vital role that geography and geospatial data has in transforming economies, sustaining the environment, and making the world a better place.    He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, and works across several domains in the geospatial information sector. Most recently promoting the work of UN-GGIM. James has written several international policy documents including the UN-GGIM’s ‘Future Trends in Geospatial Information Management: 5-10-year vision Second Ed.’ and was a contributing author to the UNDRR ‘Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2019’ where he wrote about 'Changes in technology and data sharing'. He recently wrote a UN-GGIM Discussion Paper on ‘Geospatial Information for Climate Resilience – What does UN-GGIM do?’. James is committed to outreach and advocacy in the geospatial domain and is part of several outreach initiatives including the Association for Geographic Information’s Early Careers Network which promotes opportunities for professionals with less than 10 years industry experience.

Dr. Ryan Keenan

Dr. Ryan Keenan is Chair of FIG Commission 5 Positioning and Measurement, and an active member of the FIG Asia Pacific Capability Development Network (AP CDN).  Ryan is the FIG Representative to the United Nations’ Sub-Committee on Geodesy (SCoG), an industry member of two UN-GGIM Working Groups, an industry member of the UN-GGIM Private Sector Network (PSN) and an individual member on the UN Global Geodetic Centre of Excellence (GGCE) International Advisory Committee (IAC). As Principal Consultant at Positioning Insights in Melbourne Australia, Dr. Keenan provides bespoke advisory services to global public and private sector organisations, on how satellite- and terrestrial-based positioning technologies can be best applied to overcome increasing challenges across multiple markets.

Menare Royal Mabakeng

Menare Royal Mabakeng is currently a lecturer specializing in Land Administration within the Department of Land and Spatial Sciences at Namibia University of Science and Technology. Simultaneously, she is pursuing her PhD in Integrated Water Resources Management. Her research is centred on the utilization of open land data to promote tenure security, address water tenure issues, and facilitate participatory informal settlement upgrading. Specifically, her work explores the impact of community-generated land-related information on vulnerable populations, with a particular focus on women and young individuals residing in informal settlements. Within NUST, she contributes her expertise to various courses, including those focused on Innovative Approaches to Land Administration, Land Policy and Development, Project Management for Land Administration and Information Systems Law. Royal holds a Master of Science degree in Earth Observation for Land Administration from the University of Twente, Faculty ITC in the Netherlands.

Mikael Lilje

Mikael Lilje is the Head of the International Department at Lantmäteriet (the Swedish mapping, cadastral and land registration authority). The department is responsible for the international services that Lantmäteriet is involved in, mainly in Africa and the Balkans. The Department is also supporting the Director General and her management board in co-operations like UN, UNGGIM, EuroGeographics and other important international organisations. Mikael has been active in FIG since 1998 and is currently Council member. Previously, he has been chair of the Task Force on Commission Structure, Chair of FIG Commission 5 (2011-2014), working group chair (2002-2016, 2006-2010) and Commission secretary 1998-2002. He was acting as FIG liaison to UNOOSA between 2011-18 and has organized numerous technical sessions and seminars. Mikael was co-chair of the working group on Strengthen Capacity Development within the UN-GGIM High Level Group on IGIF as well as leading the UN-GGIM Subcommittee on Geodesy working group on Education, Training and Capacity Building. He has been representing Sweden in the UNGGIM Subcommittee on Geodesy Bureau.

Rosario Casanova

Rosario Casanova is a professional land surveyor from Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de la República, Uruguay. Prof. Casanova has a master’s degree in Planning and Land Development from and a Doctorate degree in Land Surveying. She has been professor at the Land Surveying Institute in Uruguay for almost 30 years, being the Senior Lecturer of the Geomatic Department of that Institute. She was the Director of the Land Surveying Institute from 2014 until 2020. Prof. Casanova has been professor and researcher of Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Programa para América Latina y el Caribe, since 2005. Dra. Casanova is member of different academic networks related with the geographical information, especially she is the chair of the Academic Network of UN-GGIM: Americas, she is the vice-chair of Commission 2: Professional education of International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) and recently she was appointed as the vice-chair of the FIG Regional Network, America. In the national level she is serving as Vice-President for the National Society of Professional Surveyors in Uruguay (Asociación de Agrimensores del Uruguay).

Fredrik Zetterquist

Fredrik Zetterquist is a geospatial and land administration expert with 20+ years of experience from international engagements. Between 2017 and 2023 Fredrik was chair of the UNECE Working Party on Land Administration. Since 2019 his permanent position is as Programme Faculty Director for a 5-year study programme in geospatial information science at the University of Gävle, Sweden.

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