Welcome

Dear Colleagues,

Since the concept was put forth in 1998, Digital Earth has thrived with a panoramic scenario for growth. The International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) was established in Beijing in May 2006 as an international scientific organization promoting academic exchange, scientific and technological innovation, education, and international collaboration towards the development of Digital Earth. In addition to the series of symposia on Digital Earth organized every odd year since 1999, the Digital Earth summit is our society’s other platform held biennially every even year, presenting discussions on specific fields and issues related to Digital Earth since 2006.

The 6th Digital Earth Summit, together with a celebration of the tenth anniversary of ISDE, will be held on 7-8 July 2016 at the Beijing International Convention Center, China. Organized by ISDE, the summit offers a strong opportunity to exchange knowledge, develop research cooperation, discuss important issues, and continue to improve the scientific field of Digital Earth. On behalf of the organizers, hosts, and sponsors of the event, we warmly welcome scientists, engineers, technologists, managers and other stakeholders in Digital Earth to participate in this summit and the celebration of ISDE’s tenth anniversary

Under the theme "Digital Earth in the Era of Big Data”, this 6th Digital Earth Summit aims to provide an international platform to focus on the application and technologies of Digital Earth for new developments and advances in the context of big data. The birth and growth of big data have brought opportunities and challenges to Digital Earth and moved forward its concept from “putting Earth into the computer” to a broader Big Earth Data. In this new era, Digital Earth should stitch together the huge, valuable geo-data resources increasingly available to us, and perform simulations in real-time of interactions among all Earth system processes in all spheres with respect to their physical, chemical, biological and social science elements. It should also integrate massive, multi-spatial, multi-temporal, multi-resolution, and multi-typed Earth observation and socioeconomic data as well as analysis algorithms and models, fully encompassing the properties of big data.

We hope the deliberations of the conference will generate new insights, initiatives and collaborative international efforts to better understand our digital representation of the planet. We are looking forward to all the participants sharing your most recent research results, and many social and networking opportunities during the 6th Digital Earth Summit.

We welcome both seasoned and new delegates to Beijing in July 2016.

Guo Huadong & Alessandro Annoni
Co-Chairs, 6th Digital Earth Summit