Event was held from June 14 to June 16 and gathered the international community of geo-technology
São Paulo, June 20, 2011 – The first edition of MundoGEO#Connect event, accomplished by MundoGEO Group in Sao Paulo from June 14 to June 16, succeeded in gathering a big number of participants. Over 7.5 thousand people were involved in the three-day event, being that 900 of them participated in seminars and mini-courses, 1.8 thousand were visitors to the fair, besides over 5 thousand internet users who accompanied the event online, through Twitter and webinars.
Producers and users of geo information from all over Brazil came to Sao Paulo in order to attend the event, as well as participants from Angola, Bolivia, Colombia, Paraguay, Argentina and Chile, besides the businessmen from Europe, Asia and North America. This participation reinforces the international character of the event and consolidates MundoGEO#Connect as the largest encounter of geo-technology of Latin America.
MundoGEO#Connect counted on more than 100 lecturers, who discussed the main trends of the sector, with prominence for the businessmen from the companies Erdas, Topcon, RapidEye, Google, Safe and Leica. The seven seminars and the two mini-courses held during the event presented an interactive format, which allowed time for the participants to ask questions to the specialists, as well as for those who were following the event from distance to submit their questions.
For the first time, the sector provided an award and chose the best professional and geo-technology companies, being such award divided into 13 categories. In the category “award for the best companies of the geo area”, the great winners were Engemap, Sisgraph and the group Santiago & Cintra. The winner for the main award for the professional of the decade was Luiz Paulo Souto Fortes, director of geosciences of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and representative of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) in Brazil.
Another prominence of MundoGEO#Connect regarded the parallel events, promoted by the City hall of Sao Paulo, by the Company of Metropolitan Planning of Sao Paulo (Emplasa) and by Vale, among others. In these events the objective was to present and discuss the current stage of the geo-technology projects with the community. The sponsors also accomplished several simultaneous events which attracted visitors to the fair, such as the FME User Meeting, promoted by the company Inovacao; and the seminar on the future of the agribusiness in Brazil, organized by Digibase.
MundoGEO#Connect overcame all of the expectations due to the unique and innovative format of the event, for the number of connected professionals and for the quality of the contents presented in the seminars, mini-courses and at the sponsors’ stands. Eliana Kalil, researcher of the National Institute of Space Researches (Inpe) and one of the participants of the event described it, summarizing well the general opinion of the ones who were present in the event. She said: “The event was different, excellent and daring. It is not possible to compare it with any other event because it was really unique. The organizers hit the nail on the head”.
Two themes had great search in the event: the geo-referencing of rural parcels, especially in Marcelo Cunha’s lecture, general coordinator of cartography of the National Institute of Colonization and Land Reform (Incra); and the multipurpose registration of land parcels as an instrument for territorial planning, presented by Eglaísa Micheline Pontes Cunha, general manager of training of the Cities Ministry.
According to Emerson Granemann, director and publisher of MundoGEO Group, the event led off a new way of promoting the geo-technologies. “By having the event into talk show format, we privileged the interaction between the audience and the ones who were connected from a distance, not only from Brazil but also from other countries. This is, after all, our objective: to consolidate the event as the main one of the sector in Latin America”. The second edition of MundoGEO#Connect has already been set for May 29 through May 31, 2012, at Frei Caneca Convention Center, in Sao Paulo, but the space for the fair and for the auditoriums will be enlarged, seeking to assist a larger number of exhibitors, lecturers, debaters, participants and visitors.
