News

Tom Augspurger will be presenting “Scalable Sustainability with the Microsoft Planetary Computer” at the next GeoBytes webinar on Friday, February 25 at 12:00 pm ET. The webinar is FREE for all CaGIS members. See attached abstract for more information about the presentation.

Please see the CaGIS GeoBytes page for more information on registering.

Abstract

Working with environmental, geospatial data can be challenging. The huge amount of data from a many different sources makes it difficult to find the bits that you care about. Analyzing the data is difficult, especially if it’s larger than your machines memory. The Planetary Computer helps address these challenges by hosting and cataloging environmental data in consistent formats, providing APIs for searching the data, and compute to scale your workflows.

Tom Augspurger is a software engineer at Microsoft working on the Planetary Computer. He helps maintain several libraries in the PyData ecosystem, including pandas and Dask.

CaGIS is pleased to announce the call for submissions of extended abstracts and pre-conference workshop proposals for AutoCarto 2022 which will be a hybrid event for both in-person attendees and remote meeting participants. The theme of AutoCarto 2020 is Ethics in Mapping: Integrity, Inclusion, and Empathy which brings attention to ethical responsibilities we face in all aspects of our discipline with conversations on the power of maps and the critical need for integrity, inclusion, and empathy in cartography and GIScience. Submissions on topics from all areas of cartographic and geographic information science are welcome

AutoCarto will be held in Redlands, CA, on the Esri campus November 2-4, with Workshops on November 1.

The Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS) proudly announces that applications are now being accepted for the Society’s annual scholarship awards. The scholarships recognize academic achievement and encourage the continuing success of outstanding cartography and geographic information science students. The scholarships also recognize achievement or potential for achievement in original research advancing the specific disciplines of cartography or geographic information science.

Applications are due by February 28, 2022 and will be reviewed by the CaGIS Scholarship Committee. Award recipients will be announced in April, 2022.

Please see the Student Scholarships page for more information.

Save the Date for AutoCarto 2022!

November 2–4
Workshops on November 1
Redlands, California, on the Esri Campus

CaGIS proudly presents AutoCarto 2022, the 24th International Research Symposium on cartography and GIScience, with its focus on the intersection of the two.

AutoCarto 2022 brings attention to the ethical responsibilities we face in all aspects of our practice, provides a forum for discussion on the power of maps and spatial analyses, and highlights opportunities for discussions of integrity, inclusion, and empathy in cartography and GIScience.

Dan Cole and Aileen Buckley are Co-Chairs of the Organizing Committee, and Marguerite Madden and Angela Yao are Co-Chairs of the Program Committee.

We are looking for additional help, including students! Please see the conference website to see how you can get involved.

CaGIS BOARD CALL FOR NOMINATIONS 

The CaGIS Board is calling for nominations to the Board to serve starting spring of 2022. 

There are 3 positions open: the Vice President, and two Director positions. Membership on the CaGIS board requires current membership in CaGIS while serving on the Board. The CaGIS bylaws state that the Vice President position for this next year be filled with a person in government or in the private sector. However, if such a person cannot be recruited the position can be filled by an academic member. The two director positions are open to anyone in academia, government or private sector.

The responsibilities and expectations of these positions are as follows:

The Vice-President shall be elected by the Voting Members for a term of one (1) year. The Vice President shall preside at the meetings of the Society and of the Board in the absence of the President and President Elect, and discharge the duties of the President in the event of disability or in case of a vacancy in both that office and the office of President Elect. 

The Vice President shall automatically succeed to the position of President Elect for a term of one (1) year at the end of their term as Vice President, and then automatically succeed to the position of President for one (1) year at the end of their term as President Elect, and then automatically succeed to the position of Past President for one (1) year after their term as President.

Directors shall be elected for four (4) – year terms by Voting Members. The term of the Directors shall be staggered so that no more than three (3) Directors are elected in any one-year. No more than three (3) Directors may be employed by the Federal Government at the time of their election. A director may serve no more than two consecutive terms on the Board. The Directors shall aid in the management of the affairs of the Society, shall furnish counsel, and shall participate in all official actions of the Board.

Board Responsibilities:

The primary responsibility is conducting the activities of the Society. The Board has the authority to determine policies and procedures of the Society; providing such actions are in conformity with the provisions of the CaGIS By-Laws. The President, in consultation with the Treasurer, the President Elect, and the Vice President, shall prepare an annual budget including dues paid annually by the members to cover costs of Society programs and activities. The President shall submit the budget to the Board for approval.

Please contact Scott Freundschuh (scott.freundschuh@gmail.com), Exec Dir with nominations by replying to this email. Self nominations are welcome. Nominees must submit a brief bio, and a statement of their interest and what they could contribute to CaGIS and the Board.

The deadline for receiving this information is January 1.

The US National Committee (USNC) is proud to announce the ten Early Career Scholars who were awarded ICA scholarships to attend the 30th International Cartographic Conference and International Cartographic Exhibition in Florence, Italy, on December 14-18, 2021. Congratulations scholars!

Johanna Avelar (U Southern California)
Harrison Cole (Pennsylvania State U)
Nick Lally (U Kentucky)
Andong Ma (Texas A&M U)
Chelsea Nestel (U Wisconsin – Madison)
Lois Park (U Southern California)
Tim Prestby (Pennsylvania State U)
Gene Trantham (Pennsylvania State U)
Yanan Wu (U Texas – Dallas)
Lei Zou (Texas A&M U)

The Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS) invites proposals for research or outreach projects that have the potential to transform global challenges into new opportunities that advance and promote Cartography and GIScience.

Creativity, novelty, and the potential for broader impacts to society will constitute key criteria for evaluating these proposals for funding.

Proposals may request a budget up to $10,000, and CaGIS expects to fund four total projects in 2022. We welcome early-career individuals or teams to submit proposals, and at least one person on the project team must be a current CaGIS member (visit cartogis.org/membership to join CaGIS).

Please see the CaGIS Rising page for more information!

The Barbara Petchenik Children’s Map Competition entry deadline has been extended to June 15!

Organized by the Cartography and Geographic Information Society, the Children’s Map Competition is a map competition for all children ages 15 years or younger. The goal of the contest is to promote the creative representation of the world in graphic form by children. It is offered every two years to celebrate the creativity, imagination, artistry, and wisdom of child mapmakers.

Children are encouraged to submit a handmade map for this national competition. Teachers are encouraged to promote this competition to their students. First, second, and third place winners are selected in four age categories: under 6 years old, 6 to 8 years old, 9 to 12 years old, and 13 to 15 years old. An entry can be drawn by a single child or multiple children (up to three within the same age category).

Katie Patrick will be presenting “Saving the Planet with Maps + Gamification” at the next GeoBytes webinar on Friday, April 9th at 12:00 pm EST. The webinar is FREE for all CaGIS members.

Please see the CaGIS GeoBytes page for more information on registering.

Abstract

Games are a big deal. But can they save the planet? Since the recent tech startup boom, entrepreneurs have been investing in the art of getting their users to do stuff – triggering a renaissance in the field of behavioral psychology. Designers then took another step, looking to understand why games are so effective at getting their players hooked – and called this new approach gamification. What happens when you put behavioral design, gamification, and technology entrepreneurship together with big environmental causes like climate change, air pollution, and deforestation? Can we change people’s environmental behavior using gamification techniques? Can we make saving the world as fun as a game?

“There is a powerful wave of environmental innovation building. We’re building a distributed operating system for the planet, an Earth OS. When we show environmental data to humans in a real-time feedback loop, it becomes like game, and really gives them the feeling of agency that makes change happen. The “Fitbit for the Planet” movement holds great opportunity for startups, innovation, and environmental action, yet few people know yet what a big deal it is. I hope my book will help unlock our imagination to make gamified apps and projects that make saving the world the greatest game on Earth.”


Katie Patrick is an Australian-American environmental engineer, designer, and author of How to Save the World: How to make changing the world the greatest game ever played. She specializes in applying data-driven, gamification, and behavior-change techniques to environmental problems which she calls “Fitbit for the Planet” design.

Katie is the founder of UrbanCanopy.io, a map-based application that uses satellite imaging of urban heat islands and vegetation cover to encourage urban greening and cooling initiatives. She is also the co-founder of Energy Lollipop, a Chrome extension and outdoor screen project that shows the electric grid’s CO2 emissions in real-time.

Katie has been a media spokesperson on environmental issues and has been featured on TV, radio and in magazines including the BBC, Vogue Australia, and ABC. She was CEO of the VC-funded green-lifestyle magazine Green Pages Australia and was appointed environmental brand ambassador by the Ogilvy Earth advertising agency for Volkswagen, Lipton Tea, and Wolfblass Wines. She has served on the board of Australia’s national eco-label, Good Environmental Choice Australia, and won the 2008 Cosmopolitan Woman of the Year Award for entrepreneurship.

After graduating from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology with a B.Eng in Environmental Engineering, she worked as an environmental design engineer for building engineers Lincoln Scott in Sydney Australia on some of the world’s first platinum-LEED-certified commercial buildings.

Katie lives in San Francisco with her young daughter, Anastasia.

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