Egypt has a long tradition of geospatial inventions and applications. More than 5000 years ago the Pharaohs were able to put their pyramids into the right orientations using the stars, Egyptian Surveyors could re-allocate rural land flooded by the Nile to their owners, and mechanical leveling was done by wooden triangles - called the Isosceles Frames.
Nowadays, Egypt is a very dynamic country continuously developing new infrastructures such as schools, universities, hospitals highways, monorail, bridges and airports. The New Administrative Capital, New Alamein, and Benban Solar Plant are but few examples this dynamic development. The younger generations need awareness and exposure to good opportunities for education and career life balances. Hence, there is a need for geospatial infrastructures, for plannings, sustainable development, food security and many more.
This dynamic development was also the reason to launch the German University in Cairo (GUC), as a Center of Excellence in Higher Education and Research and representing the German Humboldt principle of integrating research into teaching. GUC was started in October 2003 and will offer with the graduates 2024 in total 30,000 graduates to the Egyptian and worldwide workforce market. This is a real success story. GUC has become the leading Technical University in Egypt since many years, has collaborations with the top universities in the US, Canada, Far East and Europe. Geospatial education at GUC is offered for students of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Media Engineering, more faculties will follow soon. Geospatial professionals from Egypt, the MENA region and Africa would have a convenient affordable access to the latest developments of geospatial hardware and software, and interact with academic and industry experts at the event venue in the GUC campus.
These facts have motivated the organizers of the 1st Geospatial Innovations Week 2024, Prof. Dr. Dieter Fritsch, Emeritus Professor of the University of Stuttgart, Germany, and Co-Founder of GUC, Prof. Dr. Moustafa Baraka, Geospatial Professional and Full Professor of GUC Civil Engineering, and Dr. Nadine Alameh, Director of the Taylor Geospatial Institute, St Louis, USA, to organize an event for deep diving into the latest geospatial technologies. The GIW 2024 is adapting the concept of the Photogrammetric Week Series, which was modernized and brought to a new level by D. Fritsch, who managed this biennial event for 23 years. With Hexagon being a long-time supporter awarding scientists with the Carl-Pulfrich-Prize, since 2003.
D. Fritsch launched with the support of Hexagon/Leica Geosystems the DigitalRealityLab@GUC, an infrastructure helping GUC and its students to get familiar with the latest technologies in Laser Scanning. This will also help Egypt in general, to have access to 3D reconstructions of its cultural heritage assets.
For 2024 there is a first goal to accomplish: to collect GUC20, a set of twenty cultural heritage sites in meshed 3D, located in Cairo and Luxor, using the C10 and BLK360 Leica Laser Scanners.
The GIW 2024 is to be held at GUC from 9. to 12. December 2024. Event sponsorship is available at three categories.
We expect at least 200+ attendees, not only from Egypt but also from neighboring North African countries and the Gulf Region. Thus, GIW 2024 offers a great visibility for Sponsors and Keynote Speakers, and last but not least for the attendees, as a platform for knowledge exchange and starting mutual collaborations.
In case the GIW 2024 will be very successful, which is the assumption of the organizers, we will for sure invite NGO and industrial partners to continue not only in another two years time in Cairo, but also to use this concept for a Geospatial Caravan through African countries like, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and many more.
We hope you will join the conference as an active participant. If there are any questions you can always ask the organizers of the GIW 2024.
D. Fritsch
M. Baraka
N. Alameh