The Second ESRI Asia-Pacific User Conference under the theme of "GIS for economic development" was held at Hotel Taj Palace, New Delhi, India on January 18-19. Organized by ESRI India, the event witnessed participation from more than 900 delegates from all over the Asia Pacific region.

Mr Rajesh Mathur, President, ESRI India, explaining the purpose and the importance of the event, spoke about how various users can benefit by sharing their work and experiences in the field of GIS. He also gave a brief

walkthrough of the conference and a short profile of ESRI India. A session about the ESRI Technology Directions was presented by Dr David Maguire, Director of product ESRI, where he acknowledged the ESRI and NIIT alliance and then briefed about various applications of GIS.

There were three Keynote speakers amongst the dignitaries. Prof Josef Strobl, Director of Center of Geoinformatics, spoke on 'E-Learning for Carrier Advancement' addressing two major sections, GIS Science and Education and E-Learning. Dr Devendra Pandey, Director General, Forest Survey of India, gave a brief description of the Forest Survey of India and how remote sensing and GIS are being implemented in their projects. Honorable Jeremy Harris, talked about how the city of Honolulu, Hawaii, with 1 million population, every department of the city was tied into one central Enterprise Wide GIS Infrastructure, which in turn helped the city to overcome the problems faced due to urban sprawl, traffic jams, air pollution, deforestation, improper waste management etc.

Mr Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman, NIIT Technologies Ltd, described his two engagements in the past year - the university which is being planned half way between Delhi and Jaipur where GIS helped develop the master plan, and the Rajasthan Government's Economic and Policy Review Council where GIS helped analysis of the free power given to the farmers and the decrease in the water table. Dr David Maguire gave a brief overview of ESRI's GIS products and mentioned the newly launched portals, ArcGIS Online and ArcWeb Services. Mr Damian Spangrud, Senior GIS Manager for ArcGIS Desktop, demonstrated some of the new productivity enhancements for the desktop. Dr. Sudhakar Menon, Lead developer, ArcGIS and Geodatabases, described the use and effectiveness of publishing data to servers without programming.

A technical quiz was organized by ESRI India in which three teams participated - Center for Earth Sciences and Studies (CESS), National Informatics Center and RRSSC. CESS managed to win with NIC as fi rst runners up and RRSSC second runners up. The offi cial sponsors, Hewlett Packard (HP), spoke about servers becoming better and affordable and technology becoming personal, friendly, and easier. There was also a mention of ESRI HP alliance for testing the software and hardware respectively. The second day of the conference started with three technical workshops - "what's new in ArcGIS 9.2" presented by Mr Damian Sprangrud, "ArcGIS Server 9.2 and The Geodatabase - Key Features and Concepts" presented by Dr. Sudhakar Menon, and "ArcGIS 9.2 - Spatial Analysis and Modeling Capabilities" given by Dr David Maguire. This was followed by a session with Mr. Mathew O'Connell, CEO and Chairman, GeoEye, where he shared his vision about the present and future scenario of satellite imagery and the forward plan of GeoEye.

A total of 34 papers were presented on GIS for economic development, natural resources, and E-Governance, followed by Student Papers. Mr Jack Dangermond, President ESRI, concluded the days events by emphasising the need to share information and data over different networks. He proposed a GeoWeb where anyone can share, view, and work on the information that is clubbed from different sources to perform critical analyses.

In a unique and first of its kind initiative to educate prospective audience about the technology, a Senior Executive Seminar was organized by ESRI India on January 17, 2007 in New Delhi. The seminar was attended by around 70 participants. Mr Rajesh Mathur, President, ESRI India, highlighted the importance and relevance of such an effort. Prof AR Dasgupta, Former Project Director, NRIS, Space Application Centre, shares his experience on the National Natural Resource Information Systems (NRIS). He highlighted the users' requirements, policy issues, and many other aspects that should be considered while managing a large GIS project. Dr K K Agarwal, Vice Chancellor, GGS Indraprasth University emphasized on developing an understanding on cost of implementation vs cost of non-implementation of GIS in any developmental project. Honorable Jeremy Harris, Former Mayor, City of Honolulu, in his presentation 'Enterprise wide GIS for sustainable cities', demonstrated the cost of investment against the benefits while explaining the successful experience of Honolulu city. Dr David Maguire, Director - Product Planning, ESRI, made a strong presentation 'Building a business case for GIS'. There were also presentations by Dr D Pandey, Director General, Forest Survey of India; Mr Chang Kwok-fai, Lands Department, Hong Kong; Ajita Kini, Hindustan Construction Company; and Prashun Datta, Reliance Energy. The seminar was chaired by A K Mukerji, Former Director General - Forests, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India and seminar rapporteur was Bal Krishna, Editor, Coordinates.