EUGEO - CIG2019

A big congrats to the team at NUIG for hosting such a great event - some really interesting talks over the 4 days and some nice weather for a trip to Galway. The EO session went well, Daithí and I had some really interesting speakers in a dual session - everything from satellite SAR to Drone photogrammetry.

That's it for 2019 - commiserations to Cian and team at Trinity who are hosting it next year.

Smart Farming

Liadh Kelly and Peter Mooney from Dept of CS are organising a smart farming event in mid June (12th) - two talks in particular might be of interest to Geo's/RSers - I'm giving some demos on Copernicus and satellite applications, Aidan from NCG is giving a demo of drones and what they can do. Looks like it will be an interesting day and a good line up of speakers. Aimed at techie and non-tecchie/policy makers alike - so spread the word.

My role is also tied in with SCSI - who released the annual Land Review with Teagasc last week, outreach like this and training is one of the goals of the Earth Observation and RS working group.

Stronger Standards, Stronger Profession

Survey Ireland was a success again - lots of the usual faces and ran smoothly and to plan in Dunboyne (with the usual ice cream treat).

Very wide range of speakers - starting with Lorraine McNerney and the UN GGIM Sustainable Development Goals and followed closely by James Kavanagh and the RICS standards work. I was particularly interested in a doc he mentioned on promoting security of tenure in developing countries. As well as that we had a talk on mental wellbeing - an important topic for such a busy profession and even had a talk on projections finishing up as a slide on snakes and ladders. The Discovery Programme did the usual visual feast for the yes on their range of projects over the years - Skellig Michael in particular.

The age-old riddle remains unanswered - how to get students to attend these events. There were free tickets this year and I still only saw one student!

Well done to Niamh for arranging the excellent lineup and to Edel, Patrick and team for keeping things running so smoothly.