Dear Delegates

Building on the proud tradition of Conference of Southern African Surveyors (CONSAS), I welcome you to the beautiful City of Cape Town for the 2nd AfricaGEO conference. AfricaGEO 2014 is being organized by the various South African Geomatics Associations, and enjoys the full support of; PLATO, SAGI, GISSA, Hydrographic Society of South Africa, Institute of Mining Surveyors of South Africa, the Association of Aircraft Survey Companies and the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform. The last AfricaGEO conference, with the theme of “Developing Geomatics in Africa” was also held in Cape Town in June 2011.

We are proud to announce that we have eminent keynote speakers in Prof Chris Rizos from Australia - President of the International Association of Geodesy , and Prof Georg Gartner - President of the International Cartographic Association of Austria, Dr Chen Jun of China - President of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Dr Solomon Abebe Haile from Kenya - Global Land Tool Network II Urban Legislation and Mr Jeff MCKenna from Canada - President of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo), all of whom I am sure you will enjoy listening to and learning from. Apart from the plenary sessions, there will be four parallel sessions covering the Surveying, Geo-information Science, Remote Sensing and Land Development and Tenure streams.

Another key aspect of the conference is the huge technical exhibition which I encourage you to visit to see the various products and companies on show, particularly regarding potential business opportunities in Africa. The demand for exhibition space has been unprecedented with all space sold out months before the conference! I would like to thank all our exhibitors and sponsors who have contributed generously towards the success of AfricaGEO 2014.

On the social front, we have arranged our Gala dinner at the District Six Homecoming Centre, where you can enjoy a variety of traditional South African foods served various kiosks and casually network. In addition, through the conference organizer, we have on offer a number of tours in and around Cape Town for you to enjoy the variety of tourist attractions.

Organising this conference has taken a great deal of time, dedication and commitment from a relatively small team. I would like to acknowledge and thank every member of the organising committee as well as the technical and scientific committee for the many hours of work each one of it’s members has put in to make AfricaGEO 2014 a success. I would also like to thank each of their employers for allowing the committee members to devote their time and resources towards the organisation of this conference.

Finally I would like to thank all the delegates and presenters, without whom we would not have a conference. We appreciate the fact that many of you have travelled a long way to be here, and we are honoured by your attendance.

I trust that you will find AfricaGEO 2014 to be an informative, inspirational and enjoyable event that will leave you with happy memories of your visit to Cape Town and South Africa.

Aslam Parker
Conference Chairman